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Your Majesty Bags,

We have found a kingdom, about 4 days away!

It's not much of a kingdom, being made mostly of brightly colored tents.  Some are very small and contain merchants of food and cloth, some are very large and these are reserved for the wealthy and the largest is for ruler here, who the people call the Caliph.  Families live in middle sized ones, formed in a circle around the outside of the kingdom, with the merchants just inside of that, and the Caliph at the very center.  The kingdom is called Bangala.

When we first stumbled upon them, Stace and I thought they were traveling vagabonds, entertainers of some sort.  Pockets recognized them right away and mentioned something about long knives and rubies the size of his head.

Well, he was partly right.  They do have long knives. They are broad and curved too, as if they were used to harvest grain.  They are a darker skinned people, and all seem to have very white hair.  They tell me they have lived in the desert all their lives, which I find hard to believe, since the desert has only existed here the last few generations, since the last tree died out.

Pockets told me that there was desert here before the trees died, and that your kingdom was responsible for the destruction of the forest.  Not sure if I believe him, I'll have to ask him more about it later.

Language was a bit difficult at first, and I thought they were going to attack us.  They are a very private sort of kingdom, and very suspicious of outsiders. Pockets learned their language very quickly and explained to them who we were and that we were looking to establish trade.

Very useful fellow to have around, that Pockets.  A bit odd, sometimes hard to understand, but I find him rather humorous, in a strange rambling way.  He almost acts like Old Sol did. Old Sol was one of my caretakers when I was a child.  He was hit on the head by a very large stone and wasn't quite right after that.

Anyway, Pockets learned their language and even started to teach them a bit of ours.  They seem to regard him as some sort of ... um... wizard or something.  Pockets just revels in it, of course.  I don't think he's ever been paid so much attention, or at least that's how he acts.

He dresses like they do now.  Big baggy pants made from the same material as their tents and brightly colored.  He wears a vest instead of his jacket, and he requested that they put as many pockets in it as they could.  The people here thought that was very funny, of course, but did as he asked.  When the wind blows, his pant legs blow up like a balloon on the midway, and I half believe that he'd fly away if given the chance.

The sadness he had with him when we left has all but gone.  I never got to know him before I met you, but I can see a ghost of what he used to be. No wonder you cherish him as you do, such an odd and endearing character.

Speaking of gone, Stace left not soon after we got here.  She doesn't hold the same opinion of Pockets as I do.  She basically said he was just too weird to handle and one night disappeared.  I suspect she took one of the mules and headed out, as one of them is gone as well.  I would say good riddance to her, as she was wont to complain a lot, but in truth, I shall miss her.  We had our... moments in the desert and she taught me quite a bit.

I would attribute part of the cure to Pockets sadness with the introduction of him to one of the Caliph's handmaidens.  Her name is Vive, pronounced Vi Vay and she's a cute little thing.  Comes just up to my chest, about five foot almost nothing.  Long brown hair, big brown eyes.  She looks like a child in a very adult way.

When Pockets was introduced to her, I could see in his eyes he was right away enchanted.  I could tell because he quit talking and just stared. I've seen him do this when looking at the moon or the stars or the sun. Or butterflies or whatever else caught his fancy for the moment. You know how Pockets is. 

When I get back to Tears, I'd like to learn more about Pockets. He's told me a little bit about you, Your Majesty, and about the Queen, and how you two met. Did she really save your life by giving you the gift of her own?  I sincerely look forward to hearing about that.  Pockets just gets misty eyed when he tells of it, shuts up and won't say anything more.  I think that may be part of his sadness, but I don't know.  He almost seems like an uncle I never knew I had.

Vive seems to like Pockets as well, and seems to spend an awful lot of time with him.  I'm forever catching the two of them hidden away somewhere, laughing quietly or just chatting.  I think I see a sign of trouble here, as well, as she is one of the handmaidens of the Caliph, and I'm not so sure he's going to let her go.  I believe that handmaidens here are the same as slaves, something we forbid ages ago. 

They do make an enchanting couple, though.  Pockets with his shy smile, Vive with her large brown eyes, holding hands and talking quietly without saying a word.  I do hope this does not mean trouble on the horizon. If so, I'm glad you gave me the lessons you did, Your Majesty.  Pockets is indeed someone worth dying for.

I don't have the gift of language that Pockets does, but I'm learning.  I've started to learn the writing they have there.  Curly and wavy, and a bit backwards from ours. Their characters all face the opposite direction, and they tell me that they learned to spell from the wind.  Sounds like a lot of hooey to me, but it's their language, not mine, so I'll honor it.

We have been here for four days, and there is a celebration at the Caliph's tent for us tonight.  Between Pockets and me, I think we have arranged to bring back samples of some of their incredible fabrics.  Very lightweight, very colorful, and very strong.  Where they get the dyes, I don't know, but it is bound to be a hit with the lady folk.

They liked the candles, the incense and the herbs we brought.  I told them that we also have music and fabrics and books.  They didn't care much for the idea of books.  Writing here is done mostly for business, it seems that stories are things they tell verbally, and pass down from generation to generation. 

Our music they seemed interested in, as theirs are played mostly on woodwinds.  I told them about Queens Gamboni, and they sincerely asked that we try to have them travel here.  It seems the QG have become legendary of a sort, and the people here have heard of them, just have never seen them.  Would it be too much to ask that Your Majesty request they perform here?  Schedule permitting, of course.

As to our fabrics, the people here found them a bit boring. Not enough color, they said.  I tried to show them the toughness in the fabric, but they said that if the skin is tough enough, you don't need tough clothes.  I don't know if I can sell them on the fabrics, but I'm not quite done yet.

You know, I never figured I'd turn out to be a Haggler.  I always wanted to be a soldier, a knight in my father's army, when and if he ever had one.  I'm finding this give and take to be as much an adventure as anything my young mind could come up with.  And there's no bloodshed, and I must be honest, Your Majesty, after that nasty business in the Keep, I could live the rest of my days without bloodshed and be perfectly happy.

Missing You and Queen Griz,
Yours Ever Faithful,
Harv - The Haggler.
*****************************
Harv finished folding the letter as Pockets came in to the tent.  "Harv! Harv! Harv! Harv!"

Pockets was dressed in his blue and red pantaloons, yellow vest and was shirtless.  His little wisps of gray chest hair peeked out from beneath the vest proudly. They were, he said, his badge of courage.  On his feet were yellow sandals, woven from rope, and exposed the place where his little toe once was.  When his hosts saw the wound, they oooh'd and ahhh'd as he told them the story of his capture and torture, and were even more impressed when he went on to say he never once gave his captors any information.

Harv placed the carefully folded sheet of paper, a valuable commodity, carefully in a leather envelope.  "Yes, Pockets?"  He placed the envelope in his shirt, safekeeping till he could deliver it by hand.  Bags had warned him not to reveal the location of Tears until he was sure that the people he was dealing with would not immediately cause trouble.

"Look at what I found!" Pockets exclaimed, and pulled a long cord from one of his vest pockets.  It was multi-colored, thin and close woven.  "It's made from some of the material they weave here.  It's incredible. The thread density is amazing and I've never seen anything like it.  Try to cut it with your sword!"  Pockets laid the rope down in front of Harv.

Poking it with his finger, Harv said, "Looks like just a piece of woven cloth, to me." The cord lay inert on the table, red and blue and yellow.  Harv lifted it up, feeling its weight.  "Light weight, too."

"Yeah! Isn't it great?"  Pockets poked Harv in the arm.  "Go ahead.  Try to cut it."  He stood back, smiling.

Harv shrugged, pulled his sword out and took a swipe at it.  The cord didn't respond, and showed no signs of damage. "Huh.", he said.

"Awww.. You didn't even try!  Do it again!" Pockets urged.

Harv raised his blade high, and brought it down much harder.  Again, the cord just lay there, not even twitching.  No cut appeared on it.  "Now that's interesting.", he said.  He lifted the cord close to his eyes and peered closely.  "Not a thread out of place."

"I know!" Pockets was dancing around, his pant legs flowing around his legs. "Isn't it great!" He pulled the cord from Harv's hands and held it between his own.  "I figure it's an interesting weaving that pulls the fabric so tightly, that the bonds between the fibers reinforce each other at the molecular level or even the sub-molecular level.  The force that is applied to it is distributed across the entire cord, rather than just the point of impact.  The more force, the stronger it becomes."

"It's not unbreakable, it's just that you have to know how to do it." He started to pull, gently on each end of the cord, and gradually it stretched, unraveled and then there were two cords, one in each hand. 

"Now, if I give it a sharp jerk", he demonstrated by giving one of the cords a sharp tug between his hands, "it becomes very hard and stiff."  The cord now had the appearance of a rod, unbending and flexible.  "Isn't this great!  The folks here had no idea what it could do till I started playing with it.  They knew it was very strong, and very durable, but they never tested like I have.  The only thing is that it's not very fireproof.  One little spark and it just flashes out of existence.  Very fast, and very hot."  He put the two cords in his pocket, scratched the top of his head and said "It's something that I want to take back to Bags.  I think it'll have its uses.  I just haven't figured it out yet."  He suddenly grimaced and hobbled to one of the chairs and sat down. "I keep forgetting that I'm missing a toe, and when it hurts, it's a sonuvabitch."

Harv crossed over and examined the foot.  "It seems to be healing nicely.  I've noticed that it doesn't slow you down when you and Vive dance."

Pockets smiled and nodded at the mention of Vive.  "That's true.  When she's near, it's like I don't hurt a bit.  She almost as good as finding something shiny and new."

Harv sat down and got a serious look on his face.  "Pockets, I want to talk to you about that.  Do you think it's wise to become attached to what essentially amounts to a slave?  Especially a slave of the Caliph?"

Pockets shrugged and said "You know, Harv, it's been..." He absentmindedly scratched the side of his face, "It's been close to a very, very long time since I enjoyed the company of someone that actually seemed to like me as well.  Chibi notwithstanding, of course. I'm not falling in love with her, if that's what you're worried about."  He sighed, seeing the skeptical look in Harv's eye.

"Look," he continued, "I know she's a slave.. a handmaiden, but a rose by any other name would still be just a trapped.  I'm not stupid, Harv." Harv started to interrupt but the little man raised his hand. "Let me finish.  See, I know I'm a bit odd.  I know that I've always been a bit odd.  And even with Bags and Grizelda, I've always been a bit... lonely.  Nobody to talk to, really, because they all tend to look at me like I'm some sort of crazy person when I get fired up.  Do you have any idea what it's like to find someone that just listens?  Not just listens, Harv, but she's damned smart!  She seems to grasp intuitively what I'm talking about.  Do you have any idea how important that is to me?  To NOT be lonely, for even just a little while?  Even with that, I don't have any illusions that she'll stick around.  Nobody ever has, nobody ever will.  Okay?"

Harv never thought that Pockets might actually feel something so ... normal.  He decided that he would definitely have to have a long talk with Bags once he got back to Tears.  Pockets had always seemed odd, a genius, someone that could fix anything.  Almost not quite of this world, at times.  To hear him talk about being lonely was slightly unsettling.

"Okay, Pockets. If you say so." Harv looked seriously at Pockets, obviously not happy.  "And I still say just be careful, okay?"

Pockets smiled like a goofy puppy and said "You are such a Harv!  Don't be so concerned. I have feelings for her, sure, but it's purely platonic. Well.. the sex is good too.. but other than that, we know where we stand.  Don't be such a worrier!"

A voice from outside the tent "Pockets?  Are you in there?  The Caliph has sent me to find you and the Harv for the celebration."

"Why does she call me the Harv?"  Harv asked.

Pockets just smiled and shrugged. "I'm in here with the Harv, Vive." 

Vive entered, and crossed over to Pockets. She was dressed in a long flowing robe of reds and yellow.  Her hair was pulled back from her oval face, and her large brown eyes were shining. "Hi." She said, and sat on the ground looking up at him.

"Hi back." Pockets replied, reached down and took her hand.  They just sat like that, looking at each other, smiling. They smiled at each other long enough that Harv became very uncomfortable.

"Yeah," he mumbled, "nothing to worry 'bout here."

Harv cleared his throat, twice.  Pockets looked up at him and said "I heard your first harrumph".

"Don't you think we should be going?", Harv asked.

Pockets sighed and stood up. "I suppose you're right."  He stood. "Let's go, my dear. The Harv is impatient to have a party."

Vive stood gracefully, smoothed her skirt and led the men out of the tent.  Like a child, she held onto Pockets hand and led the two men through the outer array of tents deeper into the kingdom.

The kingdom was arranged like a wagon wheel, with the Caliph very large and round tent being the central hub.  Paths, like spokes in the wheel lead from the guarded outside, where the families lived, inward, past merchants and shops, and all paths led to the Caliph.

As the trio made their way inward, greetings were called out, and the few that Harv had gotten to know called out his name. He waved back at them and greeted them in their native tongue.  He hadn't learned many words, but the greeting was important.  There was a single syllable difference between the words for "May the sun always greet you." and "May the darkness swallow you whole."  The last one was most definitely not for friends.  Harv had worked hard to get it just right, and so far had not made any enemies.

He did notice quite a number of young women look at him, and turn away quickly.  He wasn't sure, but he thought he saw a few winks, and when there was a group of women, they quickly went into conversation.  He suspected it was about him.  He wasn't far wrong.  Less often, he noticed a few stares, and not kind stares, at the pair in front of him.  Apparently there were some that believed that the friendship between Pockets and Vive was not necessarily a good thing.

Harv listened to the conversation that the two were having until it turned to the clouds in the sky.  Pockets was explaining about the formation of ice crystals and something called snow, and Vive was countering with something called and inversion layer and Harv's brain just went to sleep at that point.  "Perhaps", he thought, "Pockets really has found someone he can talk to."

**************
"Ok. I'm gonna call out your guilds, and if you're here, yell out.  If you aren't then shut up, and I'll appoint someone." 

Bags was lounging on the thrown, one leg up over the arm.  He was dressed in what he called 'casual kingwear'.  A simple red and gold jerkin tossed over forest green leggings.  Sometimes he wore his boots, sometimes he didn't.  Always at his side was his neverfull bag, and at his other side, always was a short blade.  When asked why he wore the bag, he would say "Never leave home without it."  When asked about the blade, he would smile an evil smile and say "You could ask the last guy to ask me that, but I forget where the body is."

The Staff of the Keep had a difficult time adjusting to someone that did not want to be bathed, dressed, and fed by them. Instead, the first time they tried, Bags let them know in no uncertain terms that he was to be left the absolute hell alone until he was done with his morning coffee and he could certainly bathe himself, thank you very much.

He wished that Griz was here, but she was inspecting the girls down at the cathouse.  He sighed. This king stuff was not what he signed up for, and he wasn't sure how long he could do it.  What did he know about being king, anyway?

"Okay, let's get started.  Guild of Clothiers?"

"Here, Your Majesty!", from an old woman in the crowd.

"What's your name?" Bags asked. "Mellie, Your Majesty." came the answer. 

Bags turned to the scribe standing next to the throne. "Umm.. you." he directed.  The scribe came to attention. "You are writing down the names next to the Guild, right?"  The scribe nodded.  "Okay, then." He turned back to the crowd.  When I call your guild, call out your name so that .... so that..." 

"Jenkins, Your Majesty."

"Jenkins can write your name next to the guild you represent."  He consulted the list in front of him. "Butchers?"

"Franklin, Your Majesty." A heavy set, sweaty man with brown bushy eyebrows.

"Let's drop the 'your Majesty', Okay?  Just the name will do fine." Bags asked with a bit of a smile. A tug at his sleeve called his attention to his advisor, a thin old man with a black skullcap.  Briggs was his name, Bags remembered.  "What is it, Briggs?"

The old man bowed slightly, stepped close and said "Your Majesty, it is important that the people continue to refer to you as 'Your Majesty'.  It is the only way to truly define their place and your place in the world.  They are used to it and expect it."  A smile crept across his old face and his voice dropped to a whisper.  "I doubt you'd break them of the habit anyway, Bags.  Might as well get used to it." Briggs stepped back a bit.

Bags sighed again and nodded.  "Get used to it, he says."  He consulted the list again, scanned the names and said "To hell with it.  Who wants to go to the pub?"  He turned to Briggs and asked, "Is there anything that says I can't hold court in the pub?"

The old man twiddled the sparse hair of his beard, puffed his cheeks in and out, and said "Well, it's highly unusual, but the King can hold court pretty much where ever he wants."

Bags thumped his hand on the arm of the throne and stood up. "Good! This place is just too damned depressing.  I call a recess and will reconvene at Swineheart's."  This brought a resounding agreement from the gathered crowd, with a very few grumbles from the ladies of the candle makers guild and the priest of the local religion.  As Bags passed by them, he reminded them, "If you don't show up, then I'll appoint someone in your place.  Got that?  I don't expect you to drink anything, but to not show up wouldn't be very supportive of your community, now would it?" 

Out the door he went, followed by Briggs, smiling broadly, and Jenkins, toting his pen and paper.

Once at the Pub, Bags ordered an ale, Briggs a dark beer, and Jenkins a water.  Bags directed Briggs to do the talking, gathering names and guild members, passing the information to Jenkins to write down.

"Your Majesty, I can't promise the accuracy of the information when I have too much to drink." Briggs said.

"Not to worry, Briggs!  Jenkins is a tea-totaler, ain't you Jenkins?"  Jenkins nodded. "So if you miss something, he'll get it correct, won't you Jenkins?"  Jenkins nodded again.  "You don't talk much, do you Jenkins?" Jenkins shook his head. "I like that about you, Jenkins." Bags said, and clapped the scribe on the shoulder.

"Damien," Bags called out, "there's about .. oh.. twenty or so folks right behind us.  If they order anything, they pay for it, okay.  It's not on the kingdom's tab.  Make sure they know it, too."

"Okay by me, Bags." Damien replied.

"Hey, Damien," Bags asked, "how come you don't do the 'yer majesty' stuff, like all the rest of them?"

Damien came from around the bar as the first of the guild masters walked in.  He stopped by the table where Bags was and leaned down. "It's because in here, I'm king, chum." He left the table to take care of his customers.

Bags turned to Jenkins and said "Put down the name Damien, and list it as King of Beers." Jenkins smiled shyly and did as he was told. Bags grinned largely and nudged Briggs.  "Yep.  I'm gonna like it here.  This King stuff is not all that bad, I guess."

Briggs returned the grin and said "You'll get used to it. Just give it some time."

While Briggs set about the work of collecting names and guilds, Bags rose and made his way from table to table, sitting and speaking with the people assembled.  He chatted with each of them, learning names, what they do, what they would like to do, what they would like to see happen to the kingdom. 

He decided that he liked holding court like this. It was the right way to get to know them.  Of course, they still referred to him as 'Your Majesty', but it was in a more informal tone. This way he felt more a part of them, and could hear more of what they really felt, rather than just what they thought he wanted to hear.

Bags looked over to Briggs and Jenkins.  The older man was still on his first beer, Jenkins was too busy to even sip his water.  Things were going just fine.  He wondered how Pockets and Harv were doing, briefly, just before he sat down at the table of the Priest. From the look on the Priest's face, Bags was pretty sure that Pockets and Harv were doing a whole lot better than the Priest.

"What's up, Father?  You look like someone spiked your lemonade with extra lemons." 

"Your Majesty."  Father John was not a happy person.  His cassock, black as the night, gave the impression of frowning at everything.  His hairless face, round and dour, unsmiling, scowling eyes appeared to disapprove of everything.  Reddish hair, the color of old rust, ringed his head like a bloody halo. "I would like to talk to you about your faith."

Suddenly, Bags wished he was with Pockets and Harv. 

***********************************************
The Caliph's tent was an enormous affair, tall and billowy, nearly five hundred feet in diameter, and colored in the red, gold, and green vertical stripes that were the staple of fabrics in Bangala.  It stood tall and proud in the center of the encampment, and there was only one apparent entrance.  A guard stood at the canopied entrance, out of the sun, watching all that went in, checking for weapons.

Pockets and Harv stood just outside the canopy.  Vive had long ago let go of Pockets' hand as she too became aware of the disapproving stares the pair of them were receiving.  She had already disappeared into the giant tent to attend to her duties as handmaiden of the Caliph.

"Pockets," Harv was saying in a hushed tone, "promise me that you won't steal anything here.  I've noticed a few things popping up in our tent that don't really belong to us."

"Sheesh, Harv." Pockets replied. "You are such a Harv at times.  Of course I won't steal.  I never steal.  I just see something that has no owner and if it calls out to me, it just kinda falls into my hands.  I can't believe you would think that I would actually steal something." He put on his very best hurt face.

"Okay, okay, just don't listen when something calls out to you.  The guards here have really big knives and I'd just as soon not have to deal with them.  Promise me."

Pockets sighed and mumbled something.

"What was that?" Harv asked.  "I didn't actually hear you."

"I said," Pockets replied, loud enough that some people, including the guard, turned their way.  Pockets dropped his voice so it couldn't be overheard. "I said all right.  I'll not listen to any of the shiny things that talk to me.  I'll not let them fall into my hands and my pockets and so no guard will pull their knives and you won't have to deal with them.  All right?  Is that satisfactory?  You sound just like Bags and Griz."

Harv nodded and said "I can't think of a better compliment.  Just remember, I'm not the only one that will be watching." He nodded again, this time at the guard who was still looking at them suspiciously.  Even though they had been there four days, there were quite a number of residents that didn't trust outsiders.  A few of them had noticed small things missing, and so far had not put two and two together, thankfully.

"Let's go see what this is all about." Harv said and went inside the tent.

The inside of the Caliph's tent was open and spacious. There were rooms separated from the main entry by hanging fabrics of the standard Bangala colors.  These rooms were the living quarters for the Caliph, his family and the support staff, as well as rooms whose purpose was known only to those allowed access.

The main entry took up a full one quarter of the tent.  If the tent had been a pie, this would have been a very large slice.  Near the wall where the entrance was, three tiers of benches had been placed there, to either side of the entryway. It was here that the audience sat, and there was enough room to accommodate every one in Bangala.  The place was almost full of men, women and children, dressed in enough color to cause a headache if one stared long enough.

The apex of the pie slice was where the Caliph sat.  It was a simple wooden stool, which could be folded and put away when not in use.  There was a similar stool to the right of it where the main wife of the Caliph sat.  To the left and right of the stools stood the handmaidens, scribes, priests, and whatever staff was required.  Behind the two stools would stand the Caliph's children, brothers and sisters, waiting patiently until whatever ceremony was finished.

The Caliph was not a small man, probably about three hundred pounds. He was dressed in his finest, the colors shimmering in the filtered light.  Large rings glimmered on all of his fingers, and on some of them, there were two.  He wore on his heavily bearded head a large and poofy looking crown, designating his role as ruler.  It was shaped like a large cloth donut of blues and reds, and the center of it, where the hole of the donut would be, was a red cylindrical box, that rose up to show itself.  There was a golden tassel on the top of it.

The Caliph was smiling broadly and politely applauding as a troupe of performing jugglers had just finished when Harv and Pockets stepped in.  He spied the two and waved them down to the front, to sit near him.  To his immediate left stood Vive, smiling at Pockets.  Pockets returned the smile, grabbed Harv's arm and said "Come on! They're waiting for us."

Harv allowed himself to be dragged down the single aisle, and when he stood directly in front of the Caliph, Pockets said "Kneel, Harv. Touch your forehead to the ground, then straighten back up, but don't rise until you are told to.  Anything else would be very bad."

Not wanting to find out what 'very bad' meant, Harv did as he was instructed. When they were back to the kneeling position, Pockets said, "and make sure you keep eye contact with the Caliph.  It's a sign of honesty here."

The Caliph quickly said a few words to Pockets that Harv didn't understand. He had been trying to learn the language, but was not as adept at picking it up as Pockets.  When he went to work his trade options, he always had Pockets with him to act as interpreter.  "What did he say?" he asked Pockets from the corner of his mouth.

"Really, Harv, you are just going to have to learn the language. It's not that hard, you just have to speed up your hearing and slow down your tongue." Pockets admonished, and said a few words back to the Caliph, who chuckled.

"Okay, whatever.  Just tell me what you two are talking about." Harv said, smiling and not breaking eye contact.

"The Caliph wanted to know why you were not dressed in the clothes of Bangala.  I told him it was because of the way you were built.  Then I apologized for you because you didn't understand the language. I think the chuckle was because of the first thing I said."

"You told him it was because of the way I was built?"  Harv almost turned to look at Pockets.  "What the hell does that mean?  And why would he laugh at that?"

"Well," admitted the little man, "perhaps I paraphrased a bit.  What I really said was because your manhood was so large, and it would forever be poking the person in front of you, you decided to wear the clothing of our kingdom so that you wouldn't be considered rude or father children you didn't know you had.  Is that better?  I could have told him that the clothing of Bangala chaffed you, which is the truth, but somehow I don't think that would have been so well received."

The Caliph spoke a few words to Pockets.  "Umm. He's wanting to know why I'm speaking more to you than to him.  Hold on."  Pockets shot words back at the Caliph, bowed his head to the ground and came back up. "I apologized profusely for my rudeness, thanks to you.  Now I'm going to speak to him about the trade agreements we've made with the merchants here and arrange to have them shipped back with us.  So please, Harv, shut up till I'm done, Okay?"

Harv knelt before the Caliph and listened while Pockets and the Caliph shot rapid fire discussion back and forth.  This lasted for about ten minutes, enough time that Harv's legs were beginning to cramp and he really wished it would just end and get over with.  He also hoped that Pockets was saying all the right things.  From the Caliph's reaction, they must have been because the expressions that ranged over his face were serious, laughter, chuckles, nodding, and agreement.

While the discussion was going on, the Caliph's eyes were on Pockets, so Harv allowed himself to use his peripheral to see what was going on.  Vive was smiling largely and nodding encouragement at Pockets, which was to be expected.  The Caliph's wife, a thin, rather drab looking woman, was listening intently, occasionally smiling and nodding, but mostly just being the wife of the Caliph.  The scribes were scribbling furiously, taking down every word spoken between the two, and the other handmaidens were simply there, eyes slightly downcast.  The guards were, of course, on constant alert, just in case these foreigners tried any dangerous.  They stood at attention, hands on their large curved knives, eyes full of watchfulness and ready for action.

His attention was drawn back by the sounds of disagreement.  The Caliph was making chopping motions with his hand, and saying words that didn't sound agreeable.  Pockets, hands out in supplication, was speaking words that had the tone of pleading. 

"What has he gone and done, this time?" Harv wondered.  Looking quickly at Vive's face, he could see a look of shock and a bit of dismay there. Possibly the start of a tear.  Her posture was one of tension, of nervousness.  "What is going on?" Harv tossed to Pockets. 

Pockets rattled at the Caliph a few more phrases, then replied. "He won't let me take Vive with us, Harv!  He says as part of his staff, she must stay here!"

"And?" asked Harv.

"And? AND?" Pockets spoke a few words to the Caliph, who nodded tersely.  Pockets bowed and turned to Harv.

"Uh, isn't breaking eye contact considered rude?" Harv asked nervously.

"Not if you politely ask first." Pockets explained quickly. He turned Harv to face him and said, in an anxious voice. "Look.  This woman likes me, Harv.  She really does. No fake, no ambushes, no kidding.  She likes me.  I want her with me. It's that simple."  He sighed.  "The Caliph is being unreasonable here.  He's saying that she can't go anywhere because she's one of his favorites, a chosen, and the fact that we love each other is not of consequence!"  Pockets normally cheerful face had started to cloud over with anger.

"Pockets, it's his kingdom.  It's his rules.  Did you say love?"

"Um.  Yes.  Yes, I did." Pockets admitted.  "Is it so odd that I might actually love someone, Harv? Is it somehow impossible of your definition of me?"

"No, no. Don't be getting all defensive, Pockets." Harv had his hands out, as if to protect himself. "It was just a shock, that's all. I mean, it's only been four days."

"Four days is enough, Harv. It's love. It has no time limit, except it's own." His voice turned a bit sour. "You should know that. You have .. whatshername."

"Carlie." Harv admitted.  "But it's not love... exactly.  Whatever. Listen. Let's discuss this some other time.  We'll work it out.  What about the trade stuff?"

"Who cares about the trade agreements?  This is love, Harv!"  Pockets gave Harv a hard stare, challenging.

Harv thought quickly before answering. "Okay, it's love.  I won't argue with you.  But we need to get back to Tears.  We need... I need you to come with us, so you can do the translating for the merchants that come with us.  There is nothing that says you can't come back to her when it's all said and done is there?  Do you think that she'll suddenly be out of love with you while you're gone?  Do you think she'll just disappear, have her heart dry up and blow away?"  Pockets just sat there with his arms folded, glowering.

Harv tried another tactic. "Queen's Gamboni will be gone for weeks, Pockets.  You don't think I miss Carlie?  I do.  I do. I miss her with all my heart and soul.  I've kept my distance from all the women here because of my faithfulness to her.  Can you tell me that you'd do any less for Vive?"

Pockets was still glowering, but he spoke quietly. "No.  I wouldn't do any less, and no, I doubt she would stop loving me.  I just don't want to be away from her, Harv." He softened.  "Can you understand that?" A small tear formed in his eye.

Harv reached out a hand and placed it on Pockets' shoulder.  "Yes.  I do understand that.  I felt the same way about my mother.  The same way about my Father and about Carlie.  But Pockets, we have a job to do here, and we can't let Bags and Griz down, now can we?"

Defeated, Pockets shoulders slumped and he nodded. That single tear slipped free and ran his cheek.  "You're right, Harv.  Bags and Griz are depending on us, for sure and true. I'll leave Vive here, and come back when we're done at home."

Harv smiled in his friendly way, clapped Pockets on the shoulder and said, "That's the spirit.  There's nothing that can't be overcome, Pockets, when love is involved.  Now, talk to the man, apologize and play nice."

Pockets nodded again, and said, "Don't forget to bow."  The two men turned back to the Caliph, bowed, and Pockets launched into a long discussion that Harv hoped would contain all the right words.

The Caliph sat and listened, nodding, even smiling once or twice.  He interjected a few phrases that didn't sound unkind and even sounded sympathetic. The Caliph's wife teared up and sobbed just a bit.  Vive's eyes had grown larger then they already were and her mouth wore the expression of someone that just opened a package, but didn't know if it was from friend of foe.

At the end of the discussion, the Caliph stood, approached Pockets and placed both hands on the shoulders of the kneeling man.  He said a few words of his own, after which he went back to sit on his small wooden throne.

Pockets stood.  "That's pretty much that.", he said with his eyes downcast.

"What? What's pretty much what?" Harv asked anxiously, still kneeling.

"Stand up, Harv." While Harv did so, Pockets explained, "I offered my services to the Caliph.  I told him of my love for Vive, and I apologized for my outbursts.  He told me he understood and that he had done something similar when going after his third wife."

Harv looked down at Pockets and asked, "Offered your services?  What does that mean?"

"It means that I'm to be the ambassador for Bangala, between here and Tears and any other kingdom we come in contact with."

"That doesn't sound so bad." Harv said.

"No.  It just means that I'll be living here, in Bangala, and that I can go back to Tears, but only on official business.  It just means that, except for those few visits, I'll never see Bags or Griz again."

"Ah, Pockets.  I'm sorry." Harv said sincerely.  "But for love, wouldn't you do this?  Isn't this something worth doing?"

Pockets looked at Vive, who was still standing where she was, not really sure what to make of it all.  "Yeah." he admitted.  "Yeah, it is."

The Caliph clapped his hands together, twice.  Suddenly there was a flurry of motion as the staff scattered to bring out long tables, and then to fill the tables with all manner of foodstuffs.  The crowd on the benches rose as one, and rushed towards the table to stand in line and fill their plates.

Pockets grabbed Harv's arm and said, "C'mon.  Let's eat."  On the way to the food, Pockets looked over at Vive, who smiled weakly at him.

"So this is love." Pockets said, with a feeling of great uncertainty.

***************************************
Father John was searching Bags face.  "Surely your Majesty knows that you set the tone of his Kingdom?  That you become the leader of what your subjects believe."  He waived a skeletal hand, indicating the Pub.  "Is this to be the designated place of worship?  Is this how you feel you best serve your subjects when it comes to leading a life of example? Of purity and redemption?"

Bags examined the sour expression on the Priest's face.  It was obvious that the man did not like being here, and it was obvious that the man did not like Bags very much either.  Bags looked around for Briggs and saw his advisor sitting with Jenkins, who was writing furiously as Briggs gathered information about some guild or another.  It looked like Bags was on his own. 

He sighed mightily, looked the Priest square in the eye, and said "Look.  Father.  I can tell you don't like it here.  This is not your idea of the ideal meeting place.  It is not, I'll grant you, your idea of a place of worship."

Father John pushed away from the table and said, "It most assuredly is not."

Bags continued, "And I also get the idea that you don't like me much either.  That's true, too, right?"

The priest squared his eyes with Bags. "You Majesty, I would never say anything against the Kingdom, and as the ruler, you ARE the Kingdom."

Bags placed both hands on the table, open. "Father, let's be square about this. I was raised in a religious place.  An orphanage.  For the first 14 years of my life I was surrounded by Ladies of Mercy and Priests, all doing good works.  I have nothing against you, personally, and I think anyone that believes the way you do is just fine and dandy for them.  It's just not something I personally believe in."

Before the priest could interrupt, Bags held up one hand, "Now, let me finish." He took a breath, took a drink and went on. "I've been a fighting man, I've been a bit of a scoundrel, I've even taken my turn at being a man of the cloth." Seeing the look of disbelief on the Priest's face, Bags said "It's true.  Somewhere in my stuff, I've still got the paper that says I am an ordained minister.

"Surely not!" came the surprised gasp.

"Surely So!", said Bags.  "I was a minister before I became a fighting man. I wandered these lands with Pockets before I met Grizelda, working with people, the same as you, trying to bring peace and a sense of redemption into their lives.  For that matter, if they are still alive, I've performed probably twenty marriages.  So I do understand what you are saying, make no mistake."

Father John leaned in and said "But you said you didn't believe..."

Bags interrupted him.  "I said I didn't believe like YOU do.  If other folks do, that's fine, but I don't want to think I'm going to burn in one of the seven hells just because I don't see eye to eye with my God.  Or Goddesses. Or burning bushes.  I prefer to believe that my God is someone that appreciates some of the joys of life.  Dance, which I don't do very well.  Drink, which I do very well.  Laugh, something I plan on doing a lot of.  Making love to my wife, which is also something I plan to do a lot of."

"Wife?" Father John said.  "It was my understanding that you aren't married."

"And that is something YOU are going to fix.  Let me ask you this, Father.  How do you think it would appear for the King to become married to his Queen in your church?  Do you think that would be something that might show a little bit of example?  Push a little advertising your way?  I mean, we could go out in the desert, strip down bare assed naked, sacrifice a few bunnies or whatever.  Somehow I suspect it would be a far better thing to get married in a church.  YOUR church in OUR Kingdom."

"It's also my understanding that your... intended.. may not want to get married in a church.  I have heard the rumor that she is something of an... herbalist, shall we say?"

Bags straightened up in his chair, but kept his hands open, his face amiable. "You mean a witch?  Yeah, I've heard that rumor too.  I think if she was, I would know it.  Wouldn't you?"

Father John was now rubbing his chin thoughtfully.  "What about this business venture she's involved in?  Working with ... women of less than... honorable virtues?"

Bags was starting to find the pauses and innuendos just a bit irritating.  Keeping his voice friendly, he said "It's true that the cathouse was given to her.  What was she to do? Refuse it?  She could have turned it over to someone else to run, but somehow it just made sense to keep it under royal control.  Don't you agree?  Besides, it's something that can also be brought around to supply sizable... donations to the church, by way of penance.  Or so it would seem.  I mean, after all, sinners must pay for their sins, and to who better than you? I mean, the church, Father, not you personally."

Father John was silent as he mulled over the possibilities.

Bags spiced it a bit more. "And just because I don't necessarily believe the way you do, does not mean that I won't be bringing the royal family to services on a regular basis.  Perhaps there is even a way to bring you in on the royal ceremonies, boost your popularity a bit by getting you out there in the public eye.  All done with the King's sanction, of course."

"Of course, of course." the Priest agreed, nodding.  He was thinking furiously.  This was not the sort of discussion he was prepared for.  This new king was not the bumpkin he expected, and instead turned out to be quite the learned man, one full of insight into the working of the church, and indeed a man of the cloth himself.  "I can see where you are going, Your Majesty."

Bags tossed one more chip into the pot. "What if," he looked left, right, and leaned into the table.  Father John leaned in as well, and Bags voice dropped conspiratorially. "You know we're sending people out to start trade with the other kingdoms and villages, right?"  Father John nodded. "Okay.  What if we started a seminary here?  Make you head of it?  What if we started spreading the word about the seminary, and brought in students for you to teach your way, so they could go out and spread the word?  We could charge.. or you, the church could charge a small tuition.

Father John's voice came out a hoarse whisper "And I could run this seminary the way I saw fit?"

Bags spread his hands open wide. "It would, after all, be your seminary, Father.  I would completely pull out of it, hands off, leave it all to you."

Father John smiled, broadly.  It changed his entire face, a change that Bags was glad to see.  Getting Pockets out of trouble time and again certainly came in handy.  Not that Bags would ever go back on any thing he had just talked about. His honor would not let him. 

At the same time, attending services on a regular basis might mean once a week, or it might mean once a year.  Bringing the priest in to do a benediction at ceremonies would give them a certain... homey flavor.  Not a darn thing with a good prayer, and as Bags had discovered, there are no atheists in the middle of the battlefield.

As far as the seminary, what the hell?  If the school really did take off, then the priest would be far to busy to cause any trouble, if it didn't then no harm done.  Maybe the priest would be the one Bags sent out to 'spread the word'.  That would get him out of the way as well.  Again, no harm done.  Easy Peasy.

Griz, now.  Griz might be a hard sell, but Bags figured that she was smart enough to see where he was going with this.  Like him, she had nothing against what other people believed, as long as they didn't try to shove it in her face.  She also saw nothing wrong with worship.  It gave people hope, something to work for, something to try to be better for.  It's just that she worshipped in her own way.  And there would probably be nothing wrong with a bit of 'penance' coming from the cathouse, especially if it meant the church would keep of its back and leave them to their own devices.

Bags sat back in his chair and said loud enough for the pub to hear, "So you see, Father. I am a man of faith, and I do support the church in its endeavors.  I even expect to see its attendance grow."

Father John nodded vigorously and said, just as loudly, "Your Majesty, perhaps I misjudged you and your future Queen.  I do believe that we have reached an agreement. In fact," and he winked, actually winked and broadly, "I have faith that we have."  The priest chuckled to himself at his own wit.

"Father, what say we do a bit of the sacrament?" Bags asked.  John started to protest, but Bags went on, "Surely there must be some sort of wine in this place.  You do drink wine on occasion, don't you Father?"

Father John nodded a bob and agreed. "Yes, but very little, your Majesty.  However, since this is such a proud occasion, I think I can bend just a bit."

Bags banged his hand on the table and said "Good!  Damien!" he yelled for the Barkeep to come.  "Do you have any wine in this joint?"

Damien, who was wiping his hands on a bar towel, eyed the priest briefly,  "Well, Bags, I think we can fix the Father up." He went back behind the bar, pulled a bottle from beneath it and poured some of it into a wine glass.  He then brought it back and placed it before Father John.  "There you go Father. Nectar of the God, it is."

Father John took a dubious sip, smacked his lips, smiled even more broadly than before and said "Why, this is rather fruity!  Doesn't taste like there's any alcohol in it at all." He took another sip.  "Now, this isn't wine, Barkeep.  What is it?"

Damien pulled a surprised look on his face and said, "Not wine?  Well, I'll be dipped.  It was a bottle the last priest left here as he was passing by, so I figured it would be just the thing for you."

Father John drained the glass in one swallow, held it out and said, "Could I have some more, please?  If I'd have known you had something this wonderful here, I would have quit preaching against you long ago."  He looked at Damien and said, his voice slurring just a bit, "And therss no alcohol in it, is there?"

Damien looked at Bags and nodded his head vigorously, then turned back to the priest. "Oh, there might be a smidgeon in it, I think.  But just a smidgeon"

Father John smiled broad as a baby burping and said "You're awright, Barkeep.  Bring me another. A pigeon won't send me to hell. Pigeon! Did I say pigeon?"  He laughed high pitched and pounded his hand on the table.  "I meant pigeon.. No, no, no, no!" he laughed harder and waved his hands in the air. "Smidgeon! Not pigeon!"  He suddenly got a bewildered look on his face and asked "Where's the lil priest's room?  I gotta whiz like two school boys."

Damien pointed back behind the bar and said "It's that way, Father. You mind your step now.", as the priest stumbled past.

Bags grabbed Damien's sleeve and asked "What the holy hell did you give him?"

"Why Bags! I already told you. It came from a passing priest." Damien looked hurt.

"Okay, fine.  But what's in it?"

Damien shrugged and said "Beats me.  I do like the name, though."

The silence while he waited was deadly.  Finally Bags said, "Okay. I'll bite.  What's the name?"

Just as Damien turned to go back to the bar, he smiled a slightly wicked grin and said, "Nun's Knickers."

Bags decided he was glad he didn't go with Harv and Pockets, after all.  It was good to be the King!

********************************************************
Harv had talked long into the night with Pockets about his decision. The conversation began rather one sided as Pockets had decided he didn't really have much to say. His mind was made up.

"This is something you feel you have to do?" Harv had said. Pockets nodded, and went back to packing. "I'm not really comfortable with your decision, Pockets." Harv said. Pockets would just shrug and continue loading his pockets with his belongings. He had decided to wear the clothing of Bangala, his chosen home.

"Did you even speak to Vive about it, before you made the choice?" Harv demanded.

"I didn't have to, Harv. I could see in her eyes every time we talked. This was the right thing to do.

"I don't know if that was the wisest thing to do, Pockets. I think you should have talked to her about it first."

"I don't really want to talk about it, Harv." Pockets turned his back pointedly. Harv got the idea, but plowed on anyway.

"What about Bags and Griz? What do you think they'll say?" He asked.

Pockets stopped his packing and visibly sighed. "I'm pretty sure they won't like the idea, but they'll get used to it. Bags is King now, Harv.. really, really busy. Griz is pregnant, which makes her more busy than Bags."

"Griz is pregnant?"

Pockets turned and looked at Harv. He realized that Harv, at twenty four, had just barely begun to understand the realities behind birth. The way this place was, if he wasn't careful, he'd end up married in just a couple of years. Pocket's started to think "Good thing I'll be there to look out for him." but stopped. He wouldn't be there. He'd be here. He sighed again.

"Yeah, she's pregnant. Bout the last few months, I'd guess. Bags didn't know when we left either."

"How'd you know?" Harv asked.

"Because... because I can sometimes just feel stuff... see stuff.. that other people can't." He turned back to his packing. It was almost done, but he felt the need to stay busy. "It's not like they really need me around, you know."

"What was that?" It was Harv's turn to stop what he was doing and look at Pockets.

Pocket became furiously interested in pulling things out of his pockets and resorting them. "They got each other, Harv. New jobs, baby on the way. The last thing they need is a goofy fool hanging around. It's better if I just stay here."

Harv crossed over to Pockets and put one hand on his shoulder. Pockets started to shrug off the hand, but didn't quite make it. "Look, Pockets." Harv began, gently. "I don't really know you very well. These eight days aren't enough to get to know anyone very well." He paused enough to gather the words. He wasn't used to talking to a grown up, almost twice his age. "I do know that you and Bags and Griz have a lot of history. THEY know you. And THEY fought for you. Hell, they fought for me, and they didn't even know me. But I watched how they handled you when you were.. when they thought you may not be coming back."

Through the dim light, Harv could see the reflection of moisture on the little man's cheek. Knowing that he wasn't likely to get a response right now, he continued. "Those guys love you. Yes, you're a bit odd, and yes, there are people that just don't quite understand you."

"Like Stace", Pockets murmured.

"Yeah. Like Stace." Harv grinned smallishly. He went back to finishing his own packing. "But she was a bitch anyway. Always complaining. And that's my point, Pockets. The people that don't understand you are the people that don't try. I've been around you for eight days, if you don't count the days when you were pretty much dead. I don't have much trouble with you, except when you cause trouble. Like now. I just don't understand why you would just give up two of the people that have become your family."

Pockets turned and looked at Harv. He became suddenly old, shrunken, tired. No more jester, no more fool. He was just Chester Pockets, old man, weary and tearstained. "Harv, that's the exact point. Try as they might, I would never be family. With Griz pregnant, NOW they have a family. Bags will probably, if he hasn't already, marry her. Griz will be in hog heaven, and neither of them will have the time or the energy to dig me out of whatever trouble I get myself in to."

He came over to where Harv was sitting and folding his travel gear. "Bags has been looking out for me my whole life. My whole life, Harv. We grew up together in that orphanage. I was always too smart. Always saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, or finding things that just sorta fell into my pockets. Hell, Harv. I'm a thief. If it weren't for Bags, I would have been dead a thousand times over. I can never repay that. If I was there, I'd more than likely just cause more problems."

Harv looked up at Pockets. "And what about Griz?"

"Griz. Aw Harv. There'll never be another one like her. She is a true angel. Came into our world when me and Bags were pretty low, and patched us together with the thread of her heart. She has stitched up more battle wounds and put up with more foolishness from me than anyone would have to put up with." Pockets smiled a sad smile at memories long gone.

"But that's about to change, see?" He hunkered down and crossed his arms on his knees. "She's about to become a mom. a MOM, see? One of those wonderful things that she's been pretending to be for me all these years. I think she deserves the chance to start with a baby from scratch. She doesn't need me there. She needs to focus on the baby, not me."

Harv turned just a bit and lowered his face until he was looking right into Pockets' eyes. He could see they were bloodshot, a curious blue and very sincere. He straightened back up and said "You really believe that, don't you? But I think you left out one thing in your equation. Just like you did with Vive."

Pockets stood up, creakily. "And what would that be, Master Harv?"

Harv went back to his folding, stuffing, and packing. "You forgot to add in the opinions of the other people involved."

The rest of the night continued in silence, each man wrapped in their own thoughts.
***********************
Four wagons crossing the desert.  One, the foremost, stood out because of it's plain-ness.  Covered in white to keep the sun off, it led a train of three others, all covered in bright reds, greens and yellows.

The trade goods that were selected to travel back to Tears were a variety of spices, clothes, tapestries, and wooden trinkets and toys. Pockets was the translator, Harv was the negotiator.  The Bangalarians that traveled with them were going to Tears to examine the quality of the goods that the Kingdom had to offer. Because the things Harv and Pockets had brought were interesting to them, they wanted to see what else was available.

Pockets rode quietly with Harv, looking sometimes far ahead, looking sometimes far behind.  Vive was not allowed to come, and Pockets had been told that they were not to see each other until he returned for the wedding.  Pockets took it as well as he could, only muttering the most gentle of curses. He had wanted to say goodbye properly, but was denied, he was told, by custom.

Harv tried to be cheerful, talking to the merchants on the other wagons, while Pockets drove the front.  He was learning their language, and had learned enough to joke, though haltingly.  He told them about the pub, a place they found very interesting, as they had nothing like that in Bangala.  What they found even more interesting was the cathouse.  This is an unthinkable thing in Bangala.  Women were chaste and not allowed to be with a man until they were married. This created a lot of joking and rib punching among the merchants. Harv smiled, catching the concept, if not the actual content of the discussion.

He spent time with Pockets, of course.  In truth, he was concerned, and perhaps down right worried about the little man.  Pockets rode in silence, with none of his normal joyful noise. He rode with hunched shoulders and furrowed brow.  When Harv would ask him what was the matter, Pockets would just shrug and say "Nuthin".

"What?  No earth-shattering cosmic revelations?  No incomprehensible babble?" Harv poked gently. "Pockets, I'm beginning to be very concerned for you."

"Don't worry bout it." came the morose answer.  "I'll be fine."

"I sure hope so.  Bags and Griz will have me by the short hairs if they think you got broke."  He softened.  "Pockets, it will turn out all right. You know that, don't you?"

Pockets shrugged again and said "Yeah. I know it will." He looked over at Harv and said, "Do me a favor, will you?"

Harv said "Sure, anything."

Pockets jerked a thumb back towards the wagon and said "Inside the wagon, you'll find a buncha boxes, each one marked with a red letter b.  I need you to take those boxes and distribute them among the wagons.  Make sure the last one gets at least two extras ok?"

Harv scratched his head and said "Sure, Pockets. What's in the boxes?"

Pockets said "Remember those horse apples I was experimenting on?  The experiment with the sulphur and charcoal?"

Harv nodded and said "Yeah, stunk up the wagon for a few days till it dried out.  I still say that's why Stace left."

Pockets said, "Whatever."  He turned to stare out into the distance and continued.  "There's about 30 of them in each box.  I've told the other guys what they're for and when to use them.  I'm hoping that we don't need them."

"And when are you gonna let me in on the secret?"  Harv asked, a bit perturbed.

"When it's time.  This is the desert, Harv.  Not everyone out here is nice. When it was just you, me and Stace, we weren't much of a prize.  We were left alone."  Pockets' face showed his seriousness.

"Now we're a train of brightly colored wagons, with no guard.  It's obvious to a blind man that we're carrying goods somewhere.  Just the sort of thing that attracts bad men, and I want to make sure we survive."

"So... when will it be time?"  Harv asked.

"When and if we're attacked.  I don't want to spoil the surprise. If we make it all the way to Tears without being attacked, then I'll tell you.  Otherwise, you'll find out anyway."

"Pockets, are you mad at me?"

"No."  Pockets turned from examining the horizon to face Harv.  "Why?"

"Because..." Harv shrugged.  "Because it just seems like you're just not talking to me about anything."

Pockets said "Harv, right now I'm torn, and I don't want to talk about what I'm torn about.  The things in the boxes are things that I don't want you to be concerned about.  They are a terrible thing that, once used, I plan to forget how I made them."

A bit nervously, Harv said "A terrible thing?  What kind of terrible?  Like killing terrible?" 

Pockets said "Yep.  Killing terrible.  So until I tell you what to do with it, don't worry about it."

"Easy for you to say. You're not the one carrying it to the other wagons."

"Just don't get them wet, and just don't get them too hot."

Harv reluctantly took the boxes marked b to each wagon, distributing them as Pocket had asked.  He was a bit jealous that the merchants seemed to know what the boxes contained.  They winked at him, and when he asked what was in them, they just replied "terrible killing things" and didn't say anything more.

He went back to the lead wagon and sat next to Pockets.  "It's done.  The last wagon has two more boxes than all the others.", he said sullenly.

The two rode on in silence.  Pockets scanning the horizon for bad men, Harv with folded arms, sulking.

"Do you think she'll wait for me, Harv?"  Pockets asked after a long empty silence.

Harv didn't answer, and instead just turned a bit further away.

"I don't know, Harv.  I sometimes wonder if I made a good choice in this.  I mean, you're right.  I didn't really think about it, I just did it.  Every time I've ever made a decision like this before, that's when I would end up in trouble and Bags would have to come rescue me."

Harv still gave no answer, preferring to watch the desert.

"Still, it just felt so right.  Vive and me just fit so well.  We could talk about anything, you know. We talked bout the universe, we talked bout the world.  There was nothing that we couldn't talk about."

Harv said something low.

"What?" Pockets asked.

"Nothing, Pockets."  Harv said.  "I just wonder if talk is enough.  Did you ever kiss?"

"No." Pockets replied.  "It was something that just didn't seem right, you know."

"Didn't seem right?  If it's love, why wouldn't it seem right?"

"I dunno.  It just didn't seem right.  Would almost be like breaking.. It just didn't seem right."

"I thought you said the sex was good."

Pockets was quiet a very long time, and then said "I lied. There was no sex."

"Hmm." Harv pondered.  "Sounds like you've been doing some thinking."

"Yeah.  And I'm not done yet."  Pockets faded back into silence.

After a few miles of silence, Harv asked, "Pockets.. what would these bad men look like?"

Pockets turned and squinted in the direction Harv was looking.  "Harv, they would look exactly like that"  He yelled back at the other wagons to follow as fast as they could.  "Heyah!", he yelled, urging the horse on faster. 

On the horizon, there was a group of twenty or so ponies, moving at a high speed, directly at the wagons. They moved silently at first, but when the wagons started to move faster, the horsemen let loose blood curdling yells and pushed their mounts harder.

"Harv, those are bad men.  In some places they're called pirates, some places they are called bandits, and some places they are called raiders.  I just prefer to call them bad men, because they do bad things.  Bags and I have met them a couple of times, and they are not nice men."

"What do we do, Pockets?" Harv asked.

"Open one of the boxes, and pull out the horse apple."

Harv did as he was told.  He looked at the round, hard packed horse apple.  There was a bit of a red cord imbedded in it.  "Say... isn't this that cord you showed me?"

"Yep."  Pockets said as he urged the horses faster.  He reached into one of his pockets and produced a small square box with a button on the side.  "When I tell you to, press the button.  The box will produce a small flame.  Set the cord on fire and throw the horse apple as hard as you can at the bad men, ok?  Then you'll see what a terrible killing thing is."

The group of twenty bandits came close enough that Harv could see the foam dripping from the horses mouths and forming on their coats.  "Now?" he asked.

Pockets gauged how close they were and asked, "Do you think you can hit them from here?"

Harv judged the distance and said "I think so."

"Good!  The set the cord on fire and throw the apple so that it lands about 10 feet in front of them."

"Which one?" Harv asked.

Pockets said "It doesn't matter!  Pick one and do it."

Harv pushed the button on the side of the little box.  He heard a brief scrape and was surprised by a small spark that came from inside the box and lit bit of fabric.  A tiny flame leaped up and Harv almost dropped the thing.

"What the hell is this?" He asked.

"It's a fire starter, stupid." Pockets yelled.  "Light the apple and throw it!"

Harv placed the flame under the red cord, which sparked briefly and then caught fire.  He stared briefly at the sparking thing until Pockets said "Throw it, Harv!"

Harv pulled his arm back and let throw of the round package.  It flew up and out, falling directly before the marauding pirates.  A few seconds later, there was a very loud noise, a large cloud of smoke, and bits of bad men flying in the direction away from the wagon.

"Oh my God!" shouted Harv. He turned to Pockets.  "If you had told me what they did, I wouldn't have believed it."

"Which is why I didn't tell you.  Don't stop! There are more coming." 

From the wagons behind them, the merchants were also setting their apples alight and throwing them, with the same results.  Sometimes the explosion would be large, taking out a horse and rider, and sometimes there would be just a puff of smoke. 

Harv reported this result and Pockets said "I calculated that would happen, which is why I made so many of them.  I figured the ratio of nitrogen, carbon powder and sulfur would be incredibly unreliable.  Keep throwing!"

Harv had no idea what Pockets just said, but had a momentary bit of glee because Pockets sounded like his old self again, totally incomprehensible.  He threw another apple, and brought down another of the pirates.

The chase went on for miles until finally the remaining bandits gave up.  More than half of them lay behind them, in one form of destruction or other.  Galloping away, they let loose one last defiant yell, which was answered in kind by the merchants, victorious.  Harv joined in the victory with his own yell.

"That was incredible, Pockets.  This sort of thing.. these apples.. would make us invincible!  We could defeat any army that we encountered!"

Pockets slowed the horses. They had run hard, pulling the wagon, and were almost done for.  He slowed them further, until they stopped.  When the other wagons pulled up, he gave orders to them to take care of their horses. 

"We're still half a day away from Tears.  I want the horses to be as fresh as possible, in case those nasties have friends.  We start again in two hours."  He turned to Harv.  "Harv, I told the merchants that the apples were things that we had picked up in a far away land.  I do not want them to know that we know how to make them.  That's important, okay?  and in about half an hour, I'm going to forget how they were made.  It's something I can do, and it's something that I have to do."

"Why?" Harv pleaded.  "Why forget? We can use these things, Pockets!  We can take over the world with these!"

"And that, dear boy is why I have to forget", Pockets explained patiently.  "If we went somewhere and used them, for what ever goal, then eventually someone would figure out how we made them.  When that happened they would use them against us, we would use them in retaliation.  The world would no longer be a safe place, or at least as safe as it is now.  Our children would grow up knowing that at any moment, they could be killed by a horse apple.  This is not something I want to be remembered for, and it's not something I even want to think about.  Like I told you.  Sometimes I see things, and with these things around, I see things that you do NOT want to know about."

Pockets had spoken with such authority, that Harv didn't question.  He made up his mind to talk to Bags about it, though.  Things that would go boom and destroy their enemies?  That would be a useful thing.

Pockets stepped down and stretched.  "Okay. We have two hours. I'm gonna crawl in the wagon and take a nap.  Wake me right before we leave.  And you drive, ok?  I'm tired of it."  He walked to the back of the wagon, crawled into it, and went to sleep almost immediately.

Harv also stepped down from the wagon and went to join the merchants.  He listened to them in Bangalese, and caught a few words.  It seemed they had developed a new respect for Pockets.  From what Harv gathered, they had figured he was some sort of clown before the attack.  Now, if he understood what they were saying, they were calling him General Pockets.  Harv just shook his head.

*******************
Grizelda adjusted a picture on the wall. "That's much better."

She had brought some of old king Jorge's artwork to the cathouse. It was better than the old ratty paintings that had been hanging there. The art work she chose was some of the floral patterns that Jorge had painted, rather then the more disturbing ones that were hidden away in the sculpture room. She promised herself that she would removed those horrible pieces of artwork and bury them in the backyard, but she had not worked up the courage to do it yet. Besides, Jorge might find it a bit insulting to have the things that he created buried away.

Up to now, the cathouse was simply known as the 'cathouse' and had no formal name. She had debated on a number of names and just had not chosen one yet. "Brenda!" she yelled.

The cathouse bore a little resemblance to what Grizelda had seen. She arranged with BeJay to hire some of the people in the outskirts. She found that there were carpenters, masons and even a landscaper that were residing in the forgotten part of town.

When she first approached the old woman, BeJay eyed Grizelda with suspicion. "Why would you want to hire from here? There's plenty of workmen for you to pick from? Why would you want these broken down fossils?" BeJay stood with her arms crossed over her breasts, pipe hanging from sneering lips.

Grizelda had asked if BeJay knew of anyone in the outskirts that could use work and pay. She specifically asked for carpenters and masons. She had plans.

"BeJay, are you telling me that there isn't anyone here that used to be a carpenter?" Grizelda stood her ground. "Are you saying that there isn't anyone here that could use a decent pay for an honest day's work?"

BeJay pulled the pipe from her mouth and said "I ain't sayin' nothin' of the sort. I'm asking you why you wanna hire these bums. Yeah, there may be a few here that might fit yer bill, but I'll be damned if I let them walk into a place, work till they drop like slaves, and get paid the bare minimum." She pointed the pipe at Grizelda like a weapon. "You may be the Queen, but I don't give a rat's ass. I've seen Kings and Queens before, and some of them were nice enough, it's true. Some were just stupid and thought they could just use people like wipe paper, to be thrown away when they was done with 'em. I wanna know what type you are, missy."

Grizelda took a step closer to BeJay. The old woman didn't flinch, didn't move an inch. She just stood there, like an impenetrable fortress, her eyes fixed on Grizelda's. "You ain't scarin' me not, missy. I've taken bigger men 'n you down."

Grizelda unbuttoned her blouse, and pulled it down over her left shoulder. She turned to show her back to the old woman. "Do you see this, you old crone?" BeJay looked briefly and said "I don't see nothin'."

"Look closer. Look just under the shoulder blade." BeJay did as she was commanded, begrudgingly. Under Grizelda's shoulder blade she saw a small scar, barely an inch across.

BeJay straightened painfully, and chuckled. "So? I could show you one that would make you run screamin' after you wet yerself."

Grizelda turned around and pulled her blouse down to show her left breast. She lifted it up and said "And here is where the blade came out."

BeJay leaned in, pipe clenched between her teeth. There was a smaller scar here, directly opposite of the one on the back. "Does that mean what I think it means?", she asked.

Grizelda pulled her blouse back up to cover herself. "What it means, BeJay, is that I've been run through by a very sharp blade from back to front. The bastard that did this tried for my heart, but he missed. It was enough to puncture on of my lungs, and he left me for dead, laying on a brothel floor. He was a nobleman, BeJay. One of the higher bred." Grizelda finished fastening and fixing. "That's what type I am. A low bred, born a whore, raised in a brothel, run through by a blade because he was afraid I'd talk to someone that would talk to his wife."

BeJay grumphed, but her hard look softened a bit. "That don't prove nothin to me. You could just be puttin' on airs. Seen it lots. Give 'em a little power, and they thinks they run the world."

Grizelda stepped even closer till she was staring down at the old woman. "BeJay, if you know anything, you know that I take care of the folks that stand with me or beside me. There ain't no such a thing as someone beneath me, because believe you me, I have been lower than the low. I can talk the same gutter talk as you, I can drink you under the table, I can wrassle you if you want. If that's what it will take to prove to you I'm exactly as I appear to you, then ...." Grizelda took a step back. "Then to hell with you."

"I thought you might want to give your folks some honest money." She turned and took another step toward town. "I thought you might want something better for them. I wasn't doing this for me, I was doing it because I thought that your folk might just want to prove they aren't the outskirt scum they've been led to believe. If you want to hold them here like some..." she searched for the word, then spat it out "queen, that's your business. Run your little outskirt kingdom, we'll leave you to it."

Grizelda turned and started back down the cobbled way she came. From behind her a small and gruff voice said "Hey."

She continued walking, and the voice got a bit louder. "Hey!" She took a few more steps and felt a crabby hand on her arm. "You got spunk, I'll give you that. Not every one that feels they can talk to me like you just did and walk away."

Grizelda jerked her arm away and circled on BeJay. "NO! You feel you can be mean and rough and get away with doing what you damn well please, and I'm not having any of it. You had your chance. You just lost it." The look of shock on BeJay's face almost cost Grizelda her resolve. "You may be looking for revenge upon the town that turned it's face away from these folks. I don't know. But I'm here to tell you that I was NOT one of them."

"I could have wound up here. I could have been one of the 'broken down fossils'. I got lucky. I found someone that had the faith that I could be better. And they didn't even say a word. They just showed up and helped me realize that there was more to life that laying on my back and taking it." She stopped. She realized that she was browbeating someone that cared as much about her family, as she, Grizelda, did about her own.

"If you find someone, send them to the old cathouse, tomorrow morning, at sunrise. It's under new management." She reached out a hand to touch the craggy face before her, then thought better of it. "You're good people, BeJay. A bitch, a crone, a pain in the ass. But good people" She turned and walked away.

Right before she turned the corner that led into town proper, she heard a reply, a cracked voice, possibly tearstained said "And so are you, Griz." Grizelda knew better than to turn back to look, because she knew she wouldn't see anyone there.

A week later, the place looked brand new. She made sure that the men and women that showed up to work were paid workmen's wages, fed a good lunch, and given something to eat for the night. She knew that BeJay would demand nothing less, and refuse anything more.

The place had grown a second story, which became the living quarters for the girls. A section was added to the lower level which contained a bar, a few scattered tables and a menu. The front and back were now a manicured garden with a working fountain, the water pumped from the aquifer just 3 feet below the surface. The plants in the garden came from the Mansion, and Grizelda figured that Jorge would be pleased to know that his hard work had found a place in the public eye.

During the renovations, she had given the girls the time off, with pay. She figured the pay was the same as the workmen's and the money came directly from the old treasury in the Keep. Nobody would miss it, and Bags was in complete agreement. "They are working folk, aren't they?", he said. "Pay 'em what they're worth."

While the girls were on a working vacation, Grizelda took the time to get to know them. There were four girls.

Brenda was a quiet girl, who had a foreshortened left arm. While it didn't detract from her natural beauty with her long dark hair and large dark eyes, it did tend to keep her from other forms of work. Not that she couldn't do other things, but she had found there was a certain amount of favoritism for people with two hands for most jobs. She was a people person and was well liked by the other girls.

Jo was a blonde, bouncy and bubbly in her five foot frame. Hair covered her head like a dandelion, and she had pert nose and baby blue eyes. She was a favorite among the visitors, as she was a good listener and had a voice made for singing, soft and sultry.

Billie was harsh and rough, and her customers were of the discerning type that preferred a bit of pain mixed with their pleasure. Outside work, she was gentle and loved gardening. Dark haired, small of breast, angular face not given easily to smiling, she was a intellect to be reckoned with, and very loyal to the family she had among the other girls.

Sassy was thin, anemic looking. Skinny and boney, she catered to both men and women, as her tastes were undifferentiated. She kept her voice quiet and low, never complained and let the others lead.

Grizelda decided that she couldn't have found a better quartet of girls. She held meetings with them and explained that she was the new owner. She was certain that her duties as the queen would not allow her to run the brothel and the royal household, especially with a child on the way, so she was looking for someone to manage in her stead. She picked Brenda to be her second and was surprised when there was no argument from Billie.

Billie shrugged and explained "Makes sense to me. Brenda's the natural choice, since it means that I don't have to deal with the shit head customers when their brain is on something other than sex."

"Brenda!"

"Yes, Mistress Grizelda?"

"For one thing, the name is Griz, Grizelda, Ma'am, or even, if you feel like you have to, Your Majesty. Do not call me 'Mistress'. I am not, nor will I ever be, you're Mistress. Got that?"

Brenda nodded.

"Brenda, I'm going back up to the mansion. I want you and the other girls to come up with a new name for this place. Keep in mind, this is no longer just a brothel. This is to be a social club, a place where men and women can come to just talk, get away from their troubles, sit and play games."

"And have sex." Brenda interjected.

"Well... that too. But it's no longer a requirement. I want this place to gain a respectability. Once we start to get representatives from other kingdoms, I want someplace other than that stuffy old Keep to entertain."

Brenda looked a bit uncomfortable and asked, "Are you sure we'll be all right? I mean.. we're a bit rough, Mist.. Griz. I mean, we've been kinda weak on entertaining. Stace never really cared about social refinements. All that mattered was that we collect the money from each trick."

Griz smiled and said "Ah, Brenda. The world changes and we must change with it. The entire kingdom looks down on this place, and I want to change that attitude. I don't expect miracles, but I do think we can certainly make this place a bit more... presentable. We may fail, but somehow I don't think so. Okay?"

Brenda nodded slowly and said "Okay. If you think so, Griz."

Jo burst in and ran up to Grizelda. "Grizelda! Grizelda!" she cried. Every fiber of the woman was alive, bouncing and jumping, barely contained by gravity.

Grizelda grabbed Jo by her shoulders and held her down to the earth. "Tell me what's going on, Jo!"

"There are wagons at the gate! King Bags told me to tell you to come quick. Harve and Pockets have come home!"

***************************

Harve stood breathless before Bags when he found him in the pub. 

He had run through town from the gate, looking for him.  At the Mansion, he was told to look in the Keep, at the Keep he was told, a bit disdainfully, to look in the pub.  He was told, with a sniff, that "his Majesty now holds court there."

With raised eyebrow, Bags said, "I'm sorry, could you say that again?"

Damien had thoughtfully brought a tall glass filled with an herbal tea, and placed it in front of the young man.  Harve drained a full quarter of it before repeating himself.

"Pockets refuses to come into the gate, Bags.  He's pitched a tent with the merchants from Bangala and is just sitting out there.  He says he won't come in until he has an official invitation from the King.  He says it's his right as a diplomat."

"Is he stupid?  Did he get dropped on his head or something?"  Bags ran his hand down his face from crown to chin in a slow movement.  It had the effect of pulling his already long face even longer and gave evidence to his weariness.  He had been dealing with petty squabbles all day, and in fact for most of a week. Arguments between the candle makers and the butchers about the disposal of tallow and disagreements between dressmakers and clothiers as to what the guild was going to be called had just about tried his patience.  It didn't help his mood that Grizelda was not only busy with getting that social club of hers up and running, but her pregnancy had just entered the stage that was generally called 'moodiness'.

He looked at Harve and drew a heavy sigh.  "All right, tell me all about it.  What has he gone and done this time?"

Harve reached into his shirt and pulled out a fat leather wallet.  "It's all here, Bags.  Documented and everything. I knew you would want to read about it."  He passed it over the table towards Bags, who took it and stowed it away in his bag.

"I'll read it when I get the chance, which might be never.", he said. "Why don't we cut to the chase and you just tell me the short version."

Harve told him a very brief synopsis of their time there.  When he got to the point where Pockets had given up his Tears citizenship and joined the Caliph, Bags raised his hand.

"Whoa.  Right there.  Tell me again why he did this?", he asked in a quiet, grumbly tone.

"He believes he's in love with this woman, Vive, Bags." Harve shrugged.  "I don't know... he might be.  But I don't think she's in love with him."

Bags scratched the side of his face and frowned. "He's been in love before, but he's never acted stupid over .... well.. " Bags just let that fade away into silence. "Let's just say he's never NOT come home."

"You must be talking about Pockets."  Grizelda's voice came from over Bag's shoulder.  She pulled up a chair and sat down on the other side of Bags.  She glance around and said "Where is he, by the way?"  She looked at Harv and raised an eyebrow.  "He did come back, didn't he?"

Harve didn't look directly at Grizelda, and said "He did come back.  He just didn't come back through the gate.  He won't enter the city."

"Why the hell not?"  Her eyes got large and then she said "He didn't contract any disease did he?  Like leprosy?"

"No, nothing like leprosy, Griz."

Bags interrupted "It's a girl.  He's gone kinda nuts over a girl, Griz."

"OH! Is that all." She tossed her hands in the air. "A girl.  So, when do we get to meet her?"  She leaned into the table.

"Griz, it's not that easy." Harve said. "The girl is a handmaiden to the Caliph of a small kingdom called Bangala.  Pockets believes he's in love with her, and he believes she's in love with him.  He swore himself into the Caliph's service.  As he explained it to me, it means that he gave up any citizenship he might have had to Tears, and as such, he cannot enter without an official invitation from the King.  He's sitting outside, in the wagon, with the other merchants."

"Is he stupid?" Grizelda asked.  Bags looked at her and said "I asked the same thing."

"Your Highnesses, in truth I don't think he's stupid. He feels like he doesn't have any place here.  As he explained it to me, you, Bags have a kingdom to run, and you, Griz have a baby on the way.  This gives him the idea that he is now useless to you, or too much trouble, or something.  It gets very confusing."

Bags and Grizelda exchanged long looks.  Bags' face went though an amazing transformation, starting with a curiously irritated and moving toward downright pissed off.  Grizelda, on the other hand just carried a sad expression. 

"I knew there was something wrong when he went off. He just didn't seem right." she said.

"The hell with that!", Bags exclaimed.  "He's gotten his heart all wrapped around a little girl he barely knows for... what?" He looked at Harve. "Four, five days?  And now he wants to act like a moron because of it?"

"I think he's just pouting." said Grizelda.  "He's feeling like a fifth wheel, Bags."

"I think he's an idiot.  By the Gods and Goddesses!  What makes him think I'll NOT need him with all this craziness going on?  Holy Chrome, this is just stupid."  He looked at Harve, leaned against the table and said, "If he feels he needs an invitation, then by Gom, I'll go and give him one." He pushed himself away from the table and stormed out of the pub.

Damien came up and said "He okay?"

Grizelda shook her head and explained, "Family problems."  Damien nodded and said, as he moved away, "We all got 'em."

Harv said, a bit nervously, "Bags sure looked mad."

Grizelda sighed, reached over and patted his hand. She said "This has happened before, Harve.  Not this bad, though.  Pockets has been stubborn and obnoxious, rude and condescending at times.  He's even pushed Bags to take a swing at him once or twice."

"I think what has Bags so angry is that his feelings are hurt.  This is like Pockets has taken their long friendship and said that it was all for nothing.  If I'm sad for anyone, it's for Bags.  I don't think I want to be where Pockets is right now.  It may not be pretty."

"So what do we do, Griz", Harv asked.

"We wait.  In an hour or so, I'll go out and see how things are going. If I hear anything breaking, other than bones, I'll come back here.  Then I’ll drink a bit more, give them another hour or so, and go check again.  When I hear it's quiet, then I'll go in and say my piece."

"Your piece?"

"Yeah.  Bags may yell, he may break things, he may say things he'll regret.  Pockets has heard this before, and he'll probably hear it again before he's dead.  I'm going to be much worse."

"Worse?"

"Yep.  I'm gonna kill the little moron with love.  When I'm done with him, he'll know in no uncertain terms how much he's loved and wanted."

Harve raised an eyebrow.

Grizelda raised her glass and took a calm sip of it.  "Believe me, Harve.  You don't ever want me to love you like that.  You hear?" 

The look in her eyes caused a lump to form in Harve's throat, and he swallowed, hard.  "Yes, ma'am." he said.  And he meant it.
*****************************************
Bags sat, glowering at Pockets, drumming his fingers on the table.  Long moments had passed since he flew into the wagon, forcefully pulled a chair to sit across the table from his friend, and dropped himself into it.

He had started to speak three times now.  Each time, he had opened his mouth, raised a finger, pointed at Pockets.  Each time, a sound had started to come out, only to die out in silence and a mumbled non-word.  Giving up, Bags sat and stared with grumbly eyes across the table.

Pockets, on the other side of the table, sat with arms crossed, down turned mouth, and glowered right back.  Each time Bags had opened his mouth to speak, Pockets raised his eyebrows in anticipation, leaned forward, only to find there was nothing to answer to, so he leaned back in his chair, and returned to his scowl.

The conversation, unheard by human ears, was serious, and more than that, it occurred between two friends for whom words had become unnecessary.  These words, however, were so long unused... words that had, in many cases never been spoken between the two so that there were no words for the emotions in their unspoken language.

Hurt, betrayal, stubbornness, rejection.. these played a part in the words not spoken.  Anger, insecurity, fear also had roles in the interplay between the two old friends.

The building frustration ran out of Bags, reached down his arm, raised it, and brought it down onto the table with force.  "Dammit, Pockets..." he bellowed. "Why didn't you say something?  You're my best friend... Hell, for the longest time, before Griz showed up, you were my ONLY friend.  What in the great seven circles of hell made you think you'd be useless to me?  That has got to be the most moronic thing you've ever thought of.  I can't run this place without you.  What were you thinking?"

Pockets cowered before the gale, pulling his head back like a frightened turtle.

Bags stood up and paced, back and forth, back and forth, behind his chair.  Every so often he would sit back down, to drum his fingers, and grumble to himself, then he'd get back up and pace again, back and forth, back and forth.

"I'm sorry...?" Pockets produced, meekly.

"What the hell have you got to be sorry for?"  Bags grabbed the high back of his chair and pushed his lips together so that they resembled two fat sausages.  His eyes were ablaze with words he didn't say, didn't dare say.  "Who knows what Griz is thinking right now, Pockets.  She may very well be crying her eyes out.  You know how women get when they get all emotional."  He picked the chair up and slammed it back down on it's legs.  "And you know I don't like talking bout my feeling. Never have, never will."  He stopped his pacing and stood glaring. "and here you are, forcing me to do it!  You are the most self centered little twit I've ever known?  Do you know that?  If you'd a been anyone else, I'd a dropped you by the side of a road like a rat turd."

"I said I'm sorry, Bags.  I just didn't think..."

"Damn right you didn't think.  YOU! Mister I'm So Smart all the time.  Mister I can fix anything.  Mister I'll even come back from death.  YOU didn't think."  He sat down and folded his arms and grumbled under his breath for a good five minutes while Pockets just sat and didn't say anything.  Frankly, he was afraid to.

Bags grumbled and groused under his breath and said "And why? Why? Why?  A woman?  You let a woman come between us?"

Pockets started to say something, but Bags just ran right over him. "No.. it couldn't be a woman. Hell, you've been with women before and never been this stupid.  Harve said it had something to do with you feeling like you were useless here?  Is that true?"

Pockets started to reply, but Bags just continued. "Because if you think it is, you just better get that brain BACK in gear and start thinkin' again.  Good God and Goddesses, what a moron.  Why in the hell do you think I've been with you for.... how long has it been? Nearly thirty years."

"Close to forty"

"Nearly thirty years and why do you think I put up with you?  It's not your charm. Oh, it might work on the ladies.  I've seen 'em swoon all over you when you get into one of your moods.  Hell's bells, I've been amazed at how well you do when you set your mind to it.  So I KNOW it's not a woman. Don't even tell me it's a woman."

"It's not a woman." said Pockets, quietly.

"Because if you try to even tell me it's a wo... Okay then, what the hell is it?  What made you think you could just run off and join the circus without EVEN talking to me and Griz about it?  Tinker's dam, chum.  We've fought together, whored together, nearly froze and nearly burned together.  And let's not even talk about the times we almost hanged together."

"And let's not forget the Mad Wizard."

"Oh crumbs in the sun let's not forget the Wizard.  I still wake up with the shivers about that guy.  We're just lucky you could talk us out of that." Bags stopped long enough to stare at Pockets with a cold grin on his face.  "HE liked YOU."

Pockets found the courage to stand and said "You wanna beer?  I'm gonna get a beer", and disappeared in the back for a moment.  The sound of gurgling could be heard and he presently produced two mugs of very foamy stuff.

Bags took a mug and said "What the hell is this?" He took a sip, smacked his lips and said "Not bad.  A bit weak, but not bad"

"I've been brewing with something I found in Bangala.  Called hops." Pockets explained.  "It's not ale, that it certainly is not. Not thick enough for one thing, and the color is too pure."  He took a small sip of his own, and placed the mug on the table and sighed.

"Look, Bags.  I know I was stupid.  I know that I didn't think about the way things have been for so long, you and me, you and Griz and me.  But look at it my way.  You got this kingdom to run, Griz has a baby on the way.  You two will be far too busy to be taking care of me.  When I saw Vive, I just... well.. I just saw her as the one for me.  Like Griz is for you.  Understand?"

"No."  Bags put his empty mug on the table.  "Maybe a few more of these and I would, though."  Pockets took the mug and went to the back.  "You love her?" Bags called out.

Pockets came back out and placed the mug in front of his friend. He took his own seat. "Yeah, I do.  I'm pretty sure I do.  I mean.. I'm pretty darn sure I do."

Bags grabbed his mug and said "Well, that sounds definite. Pretty darn sure."  He took a drink.  "Sounds to me like you are anything but sure."

"It's complicated, Bags..." Pockets started to say, hands outspread.

"Oh hell, Chet.  It ain't that complicated. Do you love her or not?  Simple question. Even a genius like you can answer that one."

Pockets opened and closed his mouth a number of times. Bags rarely called him by his given name.

"Come on.  It's not like you're a teenager.  I've seen you come close a million times, but nobody, and I repeat nobody, has ever triggered that spark in you.  I never seen it.  Not sure I never will.  But when it happens to you, you won't hesitate, you won't be 'pretty darn sure'.  You'll know.  You will just know."

"Well.. I loved how she made me feel." Pockets tried to explain.  "She paid attention to me, Bags.  She talked to me, and she listened to me.  She held conversations with me!"

"Yes." Bags agreed.  "And so did Chibi.  And that ended up well, didn't it, though?"

"Okay, okay. Point taken." Pockets agreed.  "But this is nothing like that.  She wants nothing from me but my friendship."

"Friendship?" Bags asked, pointedly.

"Um.  Love.. she wants my love." 

"Did she ever use the word?  Did she ever tell you she loved you?"

"Um.  No."  Pockets admitted.  "But that doesn't matter!  I could tell from her eyes, from how she laughed at my jokes!"

"I think you're being a bit desperate, chum." Bags shook his head.

Pockets sagged and looked forlorn.  "You think I did something stupid, don't you?"

Bags just looked at him, drinking from his mug.

"Oh buggers." Pockets looked more bedraggled than before. "Bags, I think I royally mucked this up.  I signed up to be the envoy or whatever to the Caliph of Bangala."

"And what does that mean?" Bags asked.

"It means that I negotiate trade between Tears and Bangala.  In return for that, the Caliph will allow me to marry Vive."

"Are you sure?  That he'll allow you to marry her?"

"Well... " Pockets was starting to sound doubtful.  "That's what he said."

"Huh."  Bags didn't say anything other than that, and just let it hang in the air.

Grizelda popped her head around the edge of the wagon.  "Is it safe?"  Not waiting for an answer, she climbed back in, causing the little wagon to become even more crowded.  "Pockets!  It's so good to see you!" She walked right over to him, wrapped him up in a bear hug that would crack ribs and stepped back to look at him.

"Well.  You don't look any different.  How do you feel?" she asked.

"Uh, I'm ok, Griz." Pockets answered.  "It's good to see you, too."

"That's all?  It's just good to see me too?"  She grabbed the last chair and sat down in it, looked over at Bags.  "Okay?" she asked.

Bags nodded and said "Just bout.  I figured you'd do the rest.  Pockets and me are square, far as I can see.  He's a bit confused, though."

"I am?" Pockets asked.

"What's he confused about, dear?" Grizelda asked.

"He's confused," Bags said taking a draw from his mug, "by the difference between someone that pays him attention, and those that love him."

"I am?" Pockets asked.

"Dear," Grizelda said, "Why don't you go back to the pub and see what Damien has for you?  Or better, go to the .. umm, Social Club and see how the workmen are coming along."

Bags started to rise, but he was stopped by Pockets.  "Bags.. wait a minute."

Grizelda said "No, I really think that Bags needs to leave, Pockets.  I have something to say to you, but I don't want Bags here when I say it."

"Griz, it's gonna have to wait." Pockets said as he got to his feet.

"Oh no, it won't!  You made some decisions that hurt our feelings and we need to get it discussed and out in the open."

"Griz!" Pockets interrupted her "I am more than willing to listen to you tell me what a moron I am, how I completely disregarded our past and ignored the feelings of the two people that care about me the most for someone who, at the very most, could only feel only the barest hints of intellectual curiosity towards me.  Okay, okay.  I'll accept it. But first, could you do me a favor? Look at the sand on the table."

"The sand?" Griz asked, dubious that this was a ploy to avoid her turn at him.

On the table, there were grains of sand.  That was normal, since this was the desert.  There was sand everywhere.  What was unusual about the sand on the table is that it was moving.  It was bouncing just a bit, in a rhythmical dance, creating little swirls.

"Okay.  The sand is moving.  So what?" Griz asked.

Bags said "I know what that means."  He looked up at Griz and said "Honey, get into Tears.  Pockets and I will be there as soon as we can get the wagons in."

Suddenly alarmed, Griz grabbed Bags' arm.  "What's going on?  What does it mean when the sand is moving?"

Bags stood up, drained what was left in his mug and said "It means we're gonna have company. Not the sort that will want to go visit your social club on a purely social basis, either."

"Gotcha." Grizelda said, rising and exiting the wagon.  She peeked her head over the edge and said to Bags "You. Be careful!"  To Pockets, she said "You.  Don't even thinks this lets you off the hoo..." something caught the corner of her vision.  "Bags, I think you better hurry."

Bags moved to where he could see what Grizelda was looking at.  "Hurry, hon.  We might not have all that much time.  Get the gates mostly closed, open just enough for us to get in, and make sure it's closed the second we get in." He looked at Pockets.  "Pockets, you better get those merchants heading toward the gate.  Like yesterday.  You are now officially invited." 

As Pockets passed by him to look toward the horizon, Bags slapped the back of his head.  "Moron". he said.

Pockets grinned as he said "Just like old times, Bags.  How many?"

"Oh.. off hand" Bags said, stepping down from the wagon, "I'd say way to many.  Get a move on!"  He started to pull the horses toward the gate.

Pockets jumped down from the wagon and looked toward the horizon.  From edge to edge there was a long black line that didn't exist there before.  It was enough to cause Pockets to run, not walk, to yell at the merchants of Bangala, "Hurry, hurry, into the gate!"  He slapped at horses, pulled at bridles, urging them toward the gate.

Seeing the approaching army, Bags just shook his head, feeling the heat of war build up in his blood again.  "Pockets!" he yelled as he passed inside of the gate.

"Yeah?" Pockets yelled back from somewhere behind.

"These friends of yours?"

"If they are, they weren't invited, Bags!"

"Pockets!" Bags yelled again.

"Yeah, Bags?" he and the merchants were at the gate, and passed it. 

The Gatekeeper threw a lever that pushed whole tree trunks thunking into their slots, causing the entire gate to become a solid part of the wall.

A sound like a roar of the ocean let loose rose outside the wall.  The merchants stood, milling around their animals and wagons, staring at the Kingdom of Tears.

Bags walked over to Pockets, placed his hands on his hips grinning like a loon.  "How many times have Griz and I told you to NOT talk to strangers?"

Pockets answered with his own grin saying "Every single time, Bags.  Every single time."
**********************************************
"Well, now what?" asked Bags.  "We're in here, they're out there.  We have this big wall between us and them." He looked at Pockets.  "You think we can wait them out?"

"You tell me, you're the king." Pockets replied.  Seeing the look on Bags' face, he continued "This place has been fairly self sufficient for years, without relying on any outside source.  I imagine we could wait them out quite comfortably."

"I thought so too." said Bags.

"As long as they haven't discovered things like fire or ladders."  Pockets mentioned off-handedly.

"That does put a kink into it, I'll admit." Bags agreed.

"Of course, we might do nothing at all until they start to hit against the wall.  I say we let them go and see what happens.  Even if they did have fire, it would be quite a while before they burned through the wall. And being horsemen, primarily, I don't really see them having ladders."

"There is that." Bags said. He started to move into town.  "Harve!" he yelled.

From somewhere nearby, Harve appeared.  "Yes, Bags?"

"Find someone..."  Bags scanned the wall as far as he could see.  To Pockets he asked, "How big around would you say this wall is?"

Pockets thought for a moment with a far away look in his eyes and then "Off hand close to 26 miles long, give or take.  Rough estimates, based upon a rough idea of the square mileage of this place, if I can assume that it's almost squarish in shape, gives me something on the order of six and a scootch over a mile. Because I've not walked it myself, I can only go by a visual, you understand."

"Why sure."  Bags turned back to Harve.  "All right, based upon that I need about 20 men, with fair to excellent sight.  I need them on the top of the wall to report what's going on at any time." He thought a moment, and said "Make that 25 men or so.  We'll need to work in shifts for a while."

He looked at Pockets. "You think they fight at night?"  Pockets shrugged.  "I reckon we'll find out soon enough."  To Harve, "Just find as many as you can, and have them meet me in the pub in about... oh... an hour."

Harve hesitated.  "What'll I tell 'em Bags?  I might have a hard time finding them. And if I do find them, I might have a hard time convincing them to climb the wall for a really boring time doing nothing then watching."

Bags turned back and looked at Harve.  "You can tell them that their King is asking them to help defend their kingdom.  If that doesn't work, tell 'em that I'll pay 'em and I'll pay 'em well.  I figure we'll have these guys", he jerked his thumb towards the gates where the sounds of the bandit's yells could be heard, "under control in short order."

"You have an idea?"  Harve asked.

"Oh, we'll figure something out."  Bags looked pointedly at Pockets, "and by we, I mean you'll figure something out."  He headed into town, toward the pub.

Pockets started to follow, but felt an hand on his arm.  "Oh no, little man.  We aren't done.  I want you to walk with me."  It was Grizelda, whose grip was such that Pockets didn't exactly flinch, but he darn near thought about it.

Grizelda drug Pocket through the market place, through the Midway, past the outlying farms and fields, and she didn't say a word.  Pockets kept trying to make small talk, to feel out the situation, but Grizelda wasn't having any of it. 

She pulled him by his arm until they came directly across from the Blacksmith's shop.  It was a little run down wood shanty, gray and old, with a rail to tie horses up to. The most predominant feature was a large bellows and forge, off to one side.

Grizelda stopped then, and pulled Pockets up close to her.  "This is my welcome home present to you.  I found it before you left and was going to show it to you.  It's not run by anyone now.  There used to be a blacksmith here, named John, but he either died or moved on."  She turned to look at him and said, "You think you can do anything with it?"

Pockets stood stunned.  "It's empty?" he asked, finally.  Grizelda nodded.  He clapped his hands and ran to the front of the shack.  Grizelda followed.

Pockets stood in the open doorway, one hand on each side, looking around with amazement. Anvil, tongs, hammers, flatters, benders and punches, all sitting or hanging where they were last laid.  "He didn't take anything with him?"

Pockets didn't wait for an answer.  He dove into the place, fascinated and overjoyed.  After a long while of boyish enthusiasm, he turned to face Grizelda.  "This is great! This is wonderful! Thank you, thank you, and thank you!"  He ran to give Grizelda a hug, but she stopped him with a raised hand.

"Hold on, Bud." Grizelda said.  "I never said it was yours.  I asked if you thought you could do something with it.  It belongs to the kingdom of Tears, and if I heard right, you don't belong to the kingdom of Tears anymore."

"Aw, Griz!"  Pockets looked up at Grizelda with a smile that died on his face when he realized she was deadly serious.

"Did you, or did you not give up your claim to anything in this kingdom when you decided to become whatever the hell it is you became for that other place?  What's it called?"

"Um... Bangala."

"Bangala.  You gave up your claim to anything in this kingdom when you signed on with Bangala. Did you or did you not do that?" She stood, facing him down, arms crossed, not a smile anywhere on her body.

"Yeah, but..." he began.

"There's no buts here, Pockets.  You made a decision and I'm going to hold you to it.  Without consulting me, without talking to Bags, you made this decision.  You chose them over us.  Have you any idea..." her voice caught a bit, "... what that does to me?  Do you realize how that breaks my heart to know that you would just turn your back on me and Bags like that?"  A tear rolled down her cheek.  "No!" she cried.  "You will not see me cry."  She turned her face away from Pockets so he couldn't see the tears.  She scrubbed them away.  Pockets started to say something, but she stopped him. 

"Don't you dare say anything until I'm finished!"  The moments passed slowly, silently.  Small sobs could be heard, but they faded into the dust.  When she turned back around, she was as serious as before, but her cheeks were wet, and her mouth was down turned.

Pockets kept his eyes on hers.  He was miserable, he had nothing to say.  A tear if his own started to form.

"I don't know why you did what you did, and I don't know how you're going to fix it.  Bags is tough, but his heart is breaking.  Knowing that you would throw away almost forty years of history after just eight days?  Good Lord, Pockets, what were you thinking?"

Pockets opened his mouth, but thought better of it.  He knew a rhetorical question when he heard it.

"And me! What about me?" Grizelda continued.  "I'm pregnant, Pockets.  Bags is a fine man, and he'll raise his child up better'n most, with straight values and beliefs.  You're a scoundrel, a petty thief, and an annoyance. You babble things that nobody can understand half the time and you constantly get yourself in trouble.  Just like now.  You just don't think things through!"

She sighed heavily, and sat on the small stoop.  She patted a spot to the right of her, and Pockets sat, silently. She continued in a quiet voice, "What is really stupid is that, for all the problems you cause, you come up with a million solutions.  You're smart, you're funny, I like having you around, I need you around.  Who else would I have teach my child?  I want my child to understand the things you understand, so that when they grow up they'll come up with impossible solutions that work, just like you.  Dammit, Pockets, you are part and parcel of this family.  Whatever in the seven hells crept into your head to make you think you weren't?"

"Both of us love you, Pockets. Can you say that about this woman that you've decided to be your latest infatuation?"

"No." said Pockets, glumly.

"No?" Grizelda repeated. "No? You mean you don't know if she loves you or not? Or you mean that no, she's not your latest infatuation?"

"I don't know if she loves me or not." Pockets admitted.  "I thought she was.. or I thought she did.  I don't know what I thought.  I was just... I don't know, Griz.  I'm sorry.  I screwed up big time."

"Yes. Yes, you did.  You did one of the most boneheaded things I've ever seen you do. You completely ignored your family and our feelings.  I was pretty angry at you when Harve told me what you had done."

"Was pretty angry?"  Pockets asked, tentatively.

"Yeah.  I can't stay angry at you very long, even if you are an idiot at times.  Now, I'm just tired and sad." She looked over at Pockets.  "So what are you gonna do about it?"

"I've been thinking about that, Griz.  I reckon I'll just have to go back and tell the Caliph that I quit."

"What do you think he'll do?" Grizelda asked.

"I imagine he'll kill me." Pockets said. "Part of what I didn't tell Harve is that this position is one way.  The only way to retire is to lose your head."

Grizelda let loose an open handed slap at his head.  "You idiot! You're even stupider than I thought!"

"Yeah, I know." Pockets agreed.

Grizelda sighed again.  She pulled Pockets close and said "You know what I have faith in, though?"

"What's that, Griz?"

"That somehow, you'll figure a way out of it. You are, after all, the one with a million impossible solutions.  You can fix anything."

"Yeah, I know." Pockets admitted without bragging.  He smiled at Grizelda broadly.  "Can I go play in the Blacksmith's shop, now?"

Grizelda stood up, dusted herself off, and said, "Yes, you may.  But only for a little bit.  Bags and I are still very angry at you, and we need you at the pub to figure out how to get us out of this latest mess you made.  We are at war, you know."

"I think I already have an idea, Griz.  It's a long shot, but it's something I was thinking about while Harve and I were on the way back.  I just want to do a few calculations first before I'm sure."

"Well... okay.  Don't be too long.  You're still in trouble." Grizelda smiled and kissed his forehead.  "You're a jerk, you know?"

"Yeah, I know." Pockets said quietly.  "Griz?"

"Yes, Pockets?"

"I knew I had screwed up the second the words came out of my mouth.  I know you guys love me.  I just felt... I don't know.  Lost? Maybe? Like I had no place?"

Grizelda hugged the little man and said "Aw honey! We all feel lost and out of place from time to time.  When I joined you and Bags, I wasn't sure if I would ever find my place with  you guys.  Now, I can't think of any place else I would fit in."  Pockets nodded in understanding.

Grizelda continued, "I know you want someone of your own.  I can feel the loneliness in you, and I know it's real.  Believe me when I say this though.  You won't find it by looking for it.  It'll come looking for you, and present itself in the most unexpected package.  Just like you and Bags did when I found you."

"Okay Griz.  I believe you.  I just want you to know I didn't really turn my back on you guys.  You will always be my family, and I wouldn't leave you on purpose." He paused a bit and then said, "I just lost my way for a bit, but I'm back where I belong now."

"I know you did, honey.  I'll be honest with you.  I suspect that if you had actually married that... what was her name?"

"Vive."

"If you had actually married Vive, I suspect that Bags and I would have to come kidnap you, because it would have been something we wouldn't have believed you would do on your own.  You would have to work very, very hard to prove to us that you really and truly had left us."  She ruffled the top of his head.  "And that, sir, is why we were so pissed off at you. Don't you dare do that again, you hear?"

"Not to worry, Griz.  It'll never happen again." Pockets crossed his heart to show his sincerity.

"Oh, like I've never heard that before." She said.  "Now, go play a bit, but not too long.  You have a kingdom to save."
****************************
Pockets mind was a whirl with the possibilities.  He wandered around the blacksmith's touching, caressing the forge; the pump handles for the bellows, the tongs.  He stroked the anvil, dreaming of the possibilities of pressure and angular momentum.

There was a bit of stock left, bars of iron, a bit of brass, little ingots of copper and nickel.  He thought about combinations of elements and metals, powders and elixirs.  In the smelter were the greenish stains of old copper rust.  He ran his finger into the smelter, pulled it up and sniffed it.

He sighed.

His memory went far back, to when he was apprenticed to M. Fletcher, the Mad Wizard.  He thought it was an odd coincidence that the wiz had been mentioned just that day, just a little while ago.  It was an incredible adventure, in both good terms and bad terms.  One of those times that he and Bags almost died, but also one of those formative times that helped to create who he was now.

He hunkered down against a shabby wall, letting his mind drift back to a time of experimentation, a time of terror and torture, and a time when his mind first started to be able to come loose from his body and float about on his own.  Bags put it all off to imagination, but Pockets knew it for reality, and without the machinations of M. Fletcher, it would never have happened.

He could still feel the pull from the trapped particle, kept in the magnetic bottle.  It was a bottle made from one of the rarest metals on the planet.  The metal looked a lot like iron, and even felt like iron, but it was formed from volcanic rock that had been gathered from high in the southern mountains.

The pull was rather like gravity, but much more intense, to the point that, from where Pockets was strapped down on the laboratory table, he felt himself being torn apart, stretched beyond endurance.  His saw his body flash below him, flying further and further away as he moved into the pull of the particle in the bottle.  He found that he had fallen though time, or so it seemed.  Images flashed before his eyes, he saw time laid out before and around him like a tunnel, and he knew that if he wanted to, he could enter any point and see what would happen, what has happened.  He didn't.  He knew it would ruin the mystery, remove the surprise that living moment to moment brought.

Still he fell, down and up and out and through, his mind full beyond full of knowledge from ages not yet occurred, of knowledge long lost, from before mankind found this place, this planet.  He could, if he so wished, pull this knowledge from the depths and tell all that he had learned, but the price would have been his being burned as a heretic or raised up as a God.  He knew this, as they both were visions he had seen in that whirlwind of past and future.  He had seen it happen, had seen his flesh char and crinkle, had seen himself trapped in a temple, served by those that revered him, but would not let him leave.

He had even seen the way he would die, not by fire, not by the boredom of being a God, but the simple way a person passes away, old age, quiet and ordinary, breathing out his last, surrounded by those who loved him.  He had seen all the ways he could die.  All of them.

These were memories he preferred not to touch. There were some things, he believed that a man should not know, so he pushed these far beyond his normal mind, to a place where they could only be touched if something triggered them.  Like now.  Like here.

It was the smells of this place that brought it to him. The smell of old, hot metal.  Leather.  Stone.  Musty wood.  Smell, he knew, was one of the most fundamental senses, and could trigger all sorts memories.

These memories were those he could live with.  He had, after all, lived with them so far, and they brought him a sort of comfort, regardless of their fearsome oddity.  He, of course, could not share them with anyone, not even Bags or Grizelda.  He knew he was already looked upon as a madman at times, to let them know what he remembered from his time at M. Fletcher would have been to admit the madness had taken control of him.

So he lived with his memories and he buried them away where they wouldn't cause any concern from those around him.  Sometimes they leaked out, as with the refrigerator or the boom apples.  Sometimes they would cause words to come out of his mouth because the situation would trigger a memory that gave the solution, as unorthodox as it may be, to whatever problem had occurred.  It was for this he was known as the man who could 'fix' things.

Lucky him.

His near death experience at the hands of Corwin had brought a lot of those buried memories boiling back.  It was the memories that caused his sadness, and he knew it.  It was why he wanted to go exploring with Harve, to get away and give himself time to bury them all over again. 

He knew now that his rushed romance was a symptom, not a cure.  He didn't want to have a wife. He wanted to find that part of himself that was stolen or lost years ago. 

He sighed.  It wasn't going to be easy, but he knew he would find a way out of this.  He always did.

Pockets stood up, listened to his knees pop and crack.  He looked around the shop, dusted his knees and hands off and said "Well, let's go see what we can fix this time around."

Harve had brought fifteen young men into the pub.  He had also brought about thirty older men as well.  He looked at Bags, shrugged and said, "They wanted to help.  It is, after all, their kingdom too."

Bags recognized Briggs, his advisor, among the older men.  He had dismissed Briggs and given him the task of keeping the Kingdom running on a day to day business.  Bags gave instructions to only be disturbed in the case of some cataclysmic event.  Among the younger men, he saw Jenkins, standing serene and awaiting orders.

"Briggs, what the hell are you doing here?" Bags called the old man over.  "I need younger men for this.  I'm going to have folks climbing the wall, walking along the top.  It's going to be a dangerous job, and I need folks in their top shape."

Briggs sat down across from Bags and smiled.  "Your Majesty, it has always been the old men that have sent the young men to do the dangerous work.  The mistake that has been made over, and over, is that the young men have seen no, or at best, very little battle.  The old men here with me, have.  They came from other towns and kingdoms, and each and every one was a soldier in that place." Briggs spread his hands.  "Each and every one of them... of us... left those places because we tired of battle, tired of being looked upon as fodder, or murderers, or worse.  There are many places on this planet we cannot go, simply because our very name, or our face, would have us killed on the spot."

"Briggs," Bags began, "I can't ask you ..."

Briggs interrupted, "With all due respect, your Majesty, this is not a situation where you ask us... this is a situation where we just are.  We will defend out kingdom.  Your permission or not.  I'm not wanting to tell you your business, Your Majesty, but this is a decision that has already been made."

Bags looked at his advisor and thought, and thought hard.  He had been a fighting man; he had seen his bit of battle.  He knew what it was like to have 'liberated' a place, only to never be able to enter that place again.  He thought about how he would feel in another ten, fifteen, or twenty years.

He looked at the young men, boys, really, that Harve had brought.  His view swapped between old and young and back again.  He pointed to Jenkins, and waved him forward.

"Jenkins, I've never heard you speak.  Can you?"  Jenkins nodded.  "Then why are you here?"

Jenkins smiled broadly, and spoke in a voice that was light and melodical.  A bit high pitched for a young man, Bags thought. "I'm here, Your Majesty, because, you see, Briggs is rather like my father.  He adopted me when I was but a babe.  Where he goes, I go.  It's just that simple."

Bags scratched his chin and replied, "You do realize this is a dangerous thing, yes?  That walking the wall it's possible you'll get killed or worse?"

Jenkins nodded and said "Yes, Your Majesty.  I'm fully aware of what might happen.  Briggs and I have spoken about this through the night.  We agreed that I'd be on top of the wall, pointing the location of the enemy, he'd be in front of the wall, fighting off the ones I was pointing at." 

Bags nodded.  "I can understand that."  He and Pockets had done the same thing, more than once.  "You'll be your dad's long eyes, is that it?"

Jenkins nodded.

"How about the rest of you?" Bags directed toward the other young men.  "You willing to be dead or tortured for this kingdom?  Because that's what may happen.  The folks on the other side of the wall apparently don't like us very much.  Why, I'm not sure, but I don't want to just parlay with them right off the bat.  I want to see what's going on first.  That means that you'll be on top the wall, seeing what they're doing and reporting back to Harve."

The group of young men stirred restlessly.  Some looked uncertain.

"Yeah, I know.  It sounds easy, and it sounds scary." Bags went on. "This is the best that will happen.  You'll climb up on the wall, space yourselves out and nothing, absolutely nothing, will happen.  The bad guys will disappear from site, deciding that we are too big a mouthful to swallow.  That's the best that can happen.  You come down off the wall and everything else goes back to the way it was, except we'll be a bit better aware that there are folks out that that want to hurt us."

"Now, the worst that can happen is that, while you're up on the wall, some bad guy will see you there, shoot you down with an arrow or a sling or something like that.  You'll fall, but you won't fall on our side, you'll fall on the other side.  And you won't die, though falling from fifty feet should kill you, but I'm talking about the worst that can happen."

"And you'll lay there, maybe unconscious, maybe not.  But eventually the bad guys get you, and drag you away to their camp.  There they torture you to find out where the weaknesses are in our defenses.  They don't speak a word of our language, but after a few hours, you get the idea of what they are asking."

A bit more nervous now, the young men shift positions and some talk among themselves.  The older men nodded sagely, as if they were in complete agreement with what they had just heard.

"You, of course, don't know where our weaknesses are.  You try to tell the bad guys this, but you don't speak their language.  They don't really care.  They expect you'll learn quick.  So they continue to torture you, for hours. Sometimes they take a break, sometimes they just trade shifts."

One or two of the youngsters sneak out the back door.  The rest, not wanting to appear cowardly to their friends, stand their ground, though on shaky ground for all that.

"Eventually, one of two things happen.  One, you die.  That's the blessing.  That's peace. That's the end of the pain.  Two, you are still alive when we finally break in to save you, having defeated the bad guys.  This is a given.  We will defeat the bad guys.  How do I know this?  Because it is the only option I have."

"So we break in and rescue you. You're broken, but alive.  We nurse you back to health or at least as close as we can get you.  So all's okey doke now, right?"

Some of the old men chuckle at that and the younger men look over as if to say "What's so funny, Pops".

"'Course, it's really not Okey doke, cuz see, you're still hurting, only on the inside.  There's a part of you that is really pissed off we didn't get there sooner, a part that is guilty cuz you got caught, and part of you is wondering if there are whispers about you going 'round town.  Your head is messed up at this point see?"

Some of the older men are nodding sagely, while some of the younger men lean in to hear.  A few more have left, and Bags makes a point to ignore them.

"It's really ok, cuz at this point the pain is all in your head.  You'll go two ways with this. You'll either get to the point where you'll learn to live with it... rationalize it away, maybe find someone to settle down with and love, or you'll kill yourself from all the snakes in your head."

Briggs raised his mug of ale that Damien had brought over.  "To friends no longer here." He toasted solemnly.  The toast was echoed from all the older men gathered there, as well as Bags.

"Now, I'm just a bit past forty.  That's a good old age for fighting men." More nods from around the tables. "Now, you kids aren't fighters yet.  I'm hoping that you never will be.  But I could use some scouts on the wall today, probably tomorrow.  Any of you still wanting to try?"

Of the fifteen that originally showed up, ten of them still lingered.  Most of them were skinny teens, with a few exceptions.  There was Jenkins and two others that seemed to be old enough to grow a few chin hairs.  Out of the 9 that were left, half of those seemed over the age of sixteen.  All of them raised their hands and said "Yes, Your Majesty"

"I'll tell you right now, if you're younger than sixteen, you're gonna stay on the ground."  There were some grumbles by the obviously youngest.  "But that doesn't mean you're going to be out of the count.  The way I figure it is this; these are just the beginning of the bad guys that are out there.  I figure it was the trade wagon coming back that attracted them, and where there's one snake, you're gonna attract a bunch more.  I'm afraid we might have to start up a militia, a kinda part time army to help defend us in case this stuff happens again."

Briggs said "Bags, I'll tell you what.  I've never heard a general or a king ever say truer words than that.  Most just want to see what sort of bodies they can throw at their enemies.  That's why most of us left our kings, really.  I think all us old farts would agree that if you're as true as you seem to be, you have your army." He looked around at the other oldsters, who nodded, huzzahed and gave general agreement.  "A bit old, but still an army."

Bags looked over at Damien, who was polishing a glass and asked, "Say, Damien!  Is there a place where we can talk without taking up all your serving room?"

Damien put down the mug and nodded.  "Bags, we have an old meeting room upstairs that should be perfect.  I was wondering if you were ever gonna ask, because if you didn't I was going to suggest it.  You holding court here every day was starting to drive my regular customers away."

"Upstairs?  This place has an upstairs?" Bags got up, walked over to the bar and saw the stairs, rather hidden in a back corner, leading upwards.  "Well, I'll be damned."  To Briggs he said, "Briggs, let's take this party upstairs."

Briggs gathered everyone attending and started herding them up.  When he and Jenkins came near Bags, Bags stopped them till everyone else had gone up.

"Briggs...  Is Briggs your real name?" Bags asked in a hushed voice.

The old man smiled, shyly.  He looked up the stairs to see if everyone had gone ahead and out of earshot.  "No.  It's really not.  My given name is Joseph.  Briggs is a nickname that just sorta stuck."

"It's short for Brigadier, isn't it?  As in General."

Briggs nodded and said "Yes.  I was one of those bastards that used to send kids out to be killed.  Took me a while, but I got sick of it.  Very sick of it.  Especially after I found Jenkins here." He tousled Jenkins' shaggy mane of hair.

Bags nodded, was quiet for a minute, then continued.  "Jenkins, you go up ahead, find a spot and wait.  We'll be right up."  Bags watched as Jenkins went up the stairs and gave a good long five count to make sure the boy was out of hearing.  "Jenkins isn't your son, is he?"

Briggs' face went a bit cold.  "Why do you ask?"

"I was just wondering, Briggs.  Not a big deal." Bags shrugged his shoulders to pass it off.  "I was just kinda wondering why it was that you'd be passing off your daughter as a boy, is all."

Briggs puffed his cheeks out a bit and said, "She not my daughter, Bags.  She's my grand-daughter.  The daughter of my son, who was one of the kids I sent out to die."

"Ah." said Bags.  "She's pretty sharp, I would imagine."

Briggs nodded.  "Won't find many sharper. But she's called a he, Bags.  I don't let on she's a girl because... well, the only place for girls now a days is either behind bar, on their back, or in a nunnery.  She ... HE doesn't want either of those choices, and I don't either."

Bags nodded.  "Yeah.  I reckon now a days that's pretty much true.  Specially here.  Okay.  I won't let slip, and I'll treat her ... HIM... just like I would any other boy."  Briggs started to say his thanks; Bags stopped him, "Don't thank me, Briggs.  Suddenly I find myself in the position of one of those old bastards, just like you used to be.  I just wanted you to know that I knew."

Briggs nodded and said "I appreciate it, Bags.  All Jenkins wants is the chance to prove himself.  And just between you and me, I suspect you couldn't possibly be half the bastard I was.  You'll figure a way out of this, and probably without losing a single life."

"I hope you're right, Briggs.  Fortunately, I have a secret weapon... if he ever shows up."

"Who?  That Pockets character?  I heard he joined some other kingdom."

"That's my secret.  He only thinks he joined some other kingdom.  I suspect, just like you and Jenkins, that family is much thicker than... than..." he fell at a loss of words.

Grizelda's voice came at him from across the bar.  "Thicker than water, sweeter than wine, more powerful than the very air we breathe." She came over and kissed Bags.  "He's going to be all right, dear.  He just needs to sort things out in his head a bit.  He more than admitted to me that this wedding idea was just a terrible mistake."

"Whew! That's a relief.  For a moment there, I was afraid I'd have to knock some sense into him.  Literally."

Briggs had a quizzical expression on his face.

"Pockets is family, Briggs." Grizelda explained. "Regardless of him being a bit odd, regardless of all the trouble he might cause, he's still family.  He knows it, though sometimes he might forget."  She looked at Bags. "He's at the old blacksmith's shop.  I figured you wouldn't mind if I gave it to him for a welcome home present."

"Was that before or after you killed him?"  Bags asked.

"Oh, I didn't kill him, silly!"  Grizelda batted her eyes.  "I just let him know in no uncertain terms that he was never to do something this stupid without talking it over with us first.  Or else then I would kill him... or he would wish I had."

Bags looked at Briggs and said "And she'd do it, too."  To Grizelda he asked, "So, is he still at the blacksmith's?"

Grizelda said "Yeah. I decided to give him a little time to himself, so he could wander and play.  The poor boy has not even seen hardly any of this place since he got here.  Besides the few hours he spent on the Midway, he was pretty much unconscious for most of it, or gone to that Bangalala land."

"You left Pockets alone.  In a blacksmith's shop?"  Bags asked.

"Yep.  He won't cause any trouble, dear.  I'm sure of it."  She paused. "I'm pretty sure of it, anyway.  I told him not to be long."

Bags put both of his hands on Grizelda's shoulders and said "Alone. Blacksmith's shop.  Pockets.  Who knows what will happen?"

Grizelda raised one hand to her mouth, pursed her lips and said with a small smile, "Oops."

***************************
"Hey."

A voice came from somewhere behind him.  Pockets turned, startled, because he didn't expect to find anyone else in the blacksmith's.. in his shop.  He wasn't disappointed.  He saw no one at all.  He turned back to the forge where he was smelting a bit of copper and tin together.  He shrugged the voice off as just the wind, on this windless day.

"Hey."

This time he didn't turn around, but he did stiffen a bit.  "As if I didn't think I was already crazy", he said.   He let his eyes shift around to see if he could catch even a shadow of who ever was calling out to him.  No shadow appeared.

Slowly he went back to his forging.  Moving carefully, he gently poked the tiny bright red ingots, who replied with showers of sparks and hisses.

"Pockets."  This time he whirled around, and caught, he thought, just the barest glimpse of black and white, fading into... nothing.

He walked over to the wall opposite where the forge stood.  Back against the wall, the heels of his hands rubbing his eyes, he slid down until he was sitting on the ground.  At first he made small sounds like short bursts of noise, then cascading to gentle chuckles, and running down rapids to laughter out loud.  Tears rolled down his cheeks and the laughter turned to sobs that faded to soul wracking sighs.

"Now, now, chum.  It's not all that bad, is it?"

"Go away!" Pockets cried.  "You're just in my head!"

"Ah, my love.  And all this time I thought I was in your heart."  A soft hand, white and feminine stroked the top of his bald head.  Gently he reached up and touched the hand and pulled it down to his left cheek. 

"You are just a figment, just a pigment." he said between deep breaths of sadness.  "I have created you, just as I create every thing else."

The hand became an arm, clothed in white as snow white, and it followed up to a shoulder, which was draped in black as coal black.  A foot, wearing black slippers that curled up sharply at the belled toes, became calves and leg and hip, wearing white.  A figure, softly feminine, knelt down beside him.

Bright blondish hair, near white, encircled her head like a halo.  Untamed and untamable, it spread out like a nebula, only barely held back with a black and white checkered bandana.  Her face; eyes, a bright sorrowed blue, above angular cheeks, sloping down to a chin sharpened in gentleness below warm bowed lips that smiled and shone teeth that were white and perfect.

She was dressed as a harlequin, white and black, day and night.  And she knelt by him, gently stroking his cheek, cooing words, soft and gentle.

"No, my dearest friend, you didn't create me.  I am as I am, and I was before you were.  I am here because you called me, because you had a need for me. No one else did, no one else could.  Only you, dear Pockets.  You are not mad, nor crazy, nor even imagining.  I am as real as any thing in your world can be real, and I exist because I had to."

Pockets turned his reddened eyes to look at the woman.  Boyish in shape, but still feminine in form, he shook his head and said "I'm sorry, ma'am.  I'm afraid I didn't catch your name." and he laughed, sadly.

The woman rose, and as she walked toward the forge she said "Why, you must pick the name out for me.  Of course, I have a name, but I suspect that the name I have is simply not good enough in this circumstance.  YOU must pick one out for me that means something to you."

Pockets, still sitting against the wall, scrubbed his face with his hands until it was tingling from the blood flow. "Wait, wait, and wait." he said.  "Who are you?  If you aren't a figment of my imagination, where did you come from?  How do you know me?"  He stood up and squinted at the black and white dressed apparition, half expecting her to fade out again.

"As to who I am, I am who I am.  Un-named as yet by you, I suppose I shall have to settle for where I came from.  Just last night, through very tall gates, came a wandering troupe of players.  I spied you as you were led from said gate this very day, and you caught my attention by simply being who you are.  As to how I know you, I have known of you for a very long time, Sir Pockets, master inventor and petty thief.  I knew you from long ago, and far away, and I strove to catch even a bare murmur of your name, of your deeds."

"Sir Pockets?" mumbled Pockets.  "That's a name I haven't heard for a long time.  For that matter there was only one person that ever called me that."  He stood up and crossed over to the woman, who was leaning against the forge, facing away from him.  "Capitani?"

"Aye sir!" the woman cried with delight as she spun around and hugged a surprised Pockets.  "You have guessed a-right! It is I, indeed.  Capitani."  She bowed low with a flourish, then leapt straight into the air, did a single backward somersault and landed flat on her feet.  "It is I, indeed!"

"Capitani!  Good God and Goddesses!  How long has it been?", Pockets babbled.  "Nearly thirty, no... wait... no... it's been about thirty years!"  He gave her a rib cracking hug.  "Last I saw you, you were being adopted by that couple from ....Ah ha!" he cried. "From the circus!"

"Aye, and aye again, Sir Pockets.  You have found me out, is true, it is."  She backed a bit away from him, but held both of his hands.  "You were my one and only friend in the dreadful orphanage, and oh! how I have missed you and oh! how I have never forgot you!"

Pockets found himself falling flat on his rear, sitting in shock and laughing.  "And here I thought you were just another part of my imagination.  Capitani, my life has not turned out at all like I thought it would."

She sat down next to him and said "I gathered from your tears that there is a sadness in your soul that needs must leak out from time to time.  I did not mean to intrude upon you at such a time, but it seemed that you needed me far more than I needed to be hidden."

"I will admit, it was a bit of a shock to see you here.  And what sort of costume is that you are wearing?" Pockets asked, touching her right arm, which was white opposed to her black left.

"You are looking at a Master Harlequin, a clown, a fancy.  I dance, I sing, I juggle.  I bring laughter where none exists and wonders where the ordinary lives."  She slapped at his hand, saying "Silly.  I told you, I'm traveling with a troupe of players.  We were here for just one night before moving to a village down near a river, just over the mountains."

"And what is it," she continued, "that brings you here?  And Bags, of course.  Where would Pockets be without Bags, and where would Bags be without Pockets?  And what of Grizelda?  Where does she fit in? Is she yours?  Is she Bags?  Is she her own self?  You must tell me all, as I suspect that where you are, there is indeed great adventure!

Pockets and Capitani sat in the shop and talked for hours.  He told her about his and Bags' adventures, the near misses, near death in some places, clean getaways in other.  He told her about his infatuations, his not quite loves, his disappointments, his pains.  Pockets poured out his soul, telling her of the visions, the hopes, the dreams that lay shattered after the Mad Wizard.  He told her of feeling as if his mind was slipping away from him, and how he ended up engaged to a handmaiden of the Caliph.

He spoke about Bags and Grizelda, how they met, how she saved Bags' life, how she saved his life. He told her about how they traveled from town to town, Bags being the natural leader, Grizelda being the organizer and voice of reason, and he being... well.. that was the question, wasn't it?  He admitted to not knowing what his role was anymore.  He explained with Bags being King and Grizelda not only being Queen, but pregnant as well, he was feeling rather lost.

"And of course," he continued, "this last bit, where I almost died sort of cinched the thing.  I realized that there was so much I was missing, hitching my wagon to Bags and Griz all the time.  I wanted to find my own... space, I guess.  And that, my dear Capitani, is pretty much where I am now, when you found me scared out of my wits, looking for a diversion from my insanity."

Capitani, sitting along side Pockets had listened with her heart as well as her ears.  She nodded when it was right, cooed sympathy when she felt sorry for the losses, shed tears for the pain she knew her old friend had gone through.  Even so, she was smiling at him, breathing slowly, carefully, trying to capture each and every moment in a bubble in her memory.

Pockets shook himself out of a reverie, smiled back at her and said "Enough about me!  I am, without a doubt, the least interesting person here.  Tell me about you." He poked her rib right in the tickle spot he knew remembered from long ago and was rewarded with a proper squirm and a slap on the hand. 

"Stop it, Pockets.  You know how ticklish I am."  Her face puckered up, and her blue eyes looked far away for a moment.  "Tell you about me, huh."  So she did.

She talked about her adoption into a circus family.  What it was like to be trained as a juggler, a pickpocket, a scam artist.  She admitted she didn't like the life of dishonesty and lies, but it was far better than the orphanage and it was a doorway out into the world.

The family wasn't the nicest people, she confided, and had adopted her to replace a daughter that had left unannounced for parts unknown. The father drank too much, too much of the time, and often beat his children to demonstrate his control over them.  He was not the best of fathers, and she was glad when she could finally walk away from him.  It had been years since they spoke, and she suspected that they would never speak again.

The mother was almost non-existent, mousey, easily controlled by the father. It wasn't until years had gone by that she and her mother had struck up a tentative friendship.  It was unlikely that familial love would ever enter into the picture, but it was something, a connection. 

"Ah." nodded Pockets.  "Any brothers?  Sisters?"

There were.  A brother and two sisters.  The brother, Mica, seemed to be the only salvageable one out of the bunch.  Every so often she would be in a town and find a letter there from him waiting for her.  It spoke of how he was, what he was doing now, with well wishes to her and her family. 

The two sisters, Edda and Angelina, were a different story. They were both mean, spiteful, and tending to believe the world owed them something.  Edda worked hard to make the universe pay for her raising.  She ran confidence games, and bilked men out of their savings through trickery or blackmail.  The other, Angelina, kept in touch with her father, siding with him in his dislike of his adoptive daughter and gaining, in return, not his love, but his money, which she used to bail herself out of any scrape she found herself. 

The family was wealthy by normal standards.  The father, though a drunk, was not a stupid man.  He was a crafty man, using his circus artists to rob, cheat and steal from the towns they visited.  From each performer, he took twenty percent of their gains, and in return gave them protection and shelter.  He knew a number of powerful men through business dealings or blackmail, and was not above calling in favors to handle any legal problems that might be encountered.  The worst that had ever happened was the circus was 'delayed pending investigation'.

She had escaped when she found a man she loved and trusted.  They met when the circus was in a small outlying village, and she was performing a death defying stunt high on the wire.  When she came down, he approached her, gave her his name as Thom, and told her she had more life in her than any woman he had ever known. 

No one had ever told her that before, and she had no answer, glib or otherwise.  They met after her performances every night for the week the circus was in town, and when the circus left, she stayed behind, hidden away in the man's barn.  Good riddance to bad rubbish, she said.

She and Thom were married not long after, in a small chapel ceremony attended by all the residence of that small village.  She played wife until the birth of her son, Bren, and then she played mother for a while.  Once Bren was old enough to travel, she and Thom started traveling from village to village, kingdom to kingdom, doing their own bit of performing. 

Thom told stories and tinkered a bit. He was a doctor and herbologist by trade, and worked to help villages set up hospitals or find someone to be their own doctor when the little troupe moved on.

She was a juggler, singer, dancer and doer of daring acts.  She would leap from roof to roof, walk high wires, swallow fire, anything entertaining, and it seemed she had a natural ability for all these things.  It was the only thing she came away with from her adoptive family that she treasured.

Bren was now 15, and he showed his own abilities.  He found intelligence and literature an easy thing, so he would entertain with dramatic or comedic readings, many of which he composed himself.  Both she and Thom were very proud of Bren's capabilities, and it showed in the shiny eyes she had when she spoke of him.

"But we're tired now, Pockets." Capitani said.  "Honestly, I'm tired.  I think Thom and Bren would keep on traveling forever and a day and then a bit longer.  But me?  I'm not as strong as I used to be.  I find myself making more mistakes, and for a wire walker, a bad mistake ends up in a funeral."  She looked at Pockets, straight in his eyes, took his hands in hers and said "I'm looking for a home, Pockets.  I'm looking for a place to settle."

Pockets took Capitani's gentle gaze and said "I know what you're not telling me, Capitani."

"Good!  Then we shall not mention it again, shall we?"  She bounced up from the ground, spun around with her arms out from her sides like a ballerina.  She looked like a black and white checkered top, twirling and twirling.  "This place feels perfect for you, my friend!  All the toys your overactive mind could use!"  She stopped and dropped to lean on the forge, bounce away, rubbing her monochromatic rear-end. "OW!  That's hot!"

The sight of her pulled Pockets from his melancholy, and he too rose, laughing.  "Why yes, Capi.  Yes, it is." 

He went over to where she stood with her pouty face and said, "Let's go introduce you to Grizelda."  He linked his arm in hers, gently pulled her out the door and down the road toward town.  He walked slowly, just so he could make the time last. "They're probably in the Pub. Bags will be surprised to see you, if, that is, he remembers you.  He was pretty caught up in keeping me from being killed way back then."

Capitani pulled on Pockets arm, stopping him.  "Pockets, my friend, as much as I would like to, I cannot go into the pub with you.  I am sorry."

Pockets was quiet a moment and then asked, "Is it your faith, Capi?"

Capitani laughed musically and said "Goodness no! In my younger days I would have drunk both you and Bags under the table."  She shook her head negatively, "No, Pockets.  It's my health, that thing we will not talk about."

"I can't tolerate noises that are very loud and I cannot abide smoke.  It came from my years as a performer with the circus, you see. I contracted an illness that drains my strength terribly. I didn't even know it existed for years and years. I thought I was just tired.  My lungs have been damaged and I can only perform for a short while. Even that little bit I did back at your shop just about did me in."

"Oh my." said Pockets, quietly.  A long moment passed before he asked "Do you and your family have a place to stay yet?"

"No, though we are looking.  We just got here last night, performed a bit, and slept in a barn.  We were in town, looking to make some contacts when I saw you.  Thom and Bren are still there, waiting for me.  I told them to do their best without me."

"I explained to Thom who you are, and though he was a bit confused, he let me go.  He's heard stories about you for a very long time, and were he any other man, he might have become jealous, but he's secure enough not to be.  He's a very, very good man, Pockets."

"I would say he better be," Pockets said quietly.  "He's got a very, very good woman."

Capitani blushed, curtsied, and said "Now, let's not have any more talk like that, young man.  You and I are just old friends and that's the way it will always be."  She kissed him on his cheek, pulling a blush from Pockets himself.

The two continued on their way, each in their own world.  They talked about small things.  Weather, birds they saw, cloud shapes.

"Umm." Pockets said as they entered the town proper. "How bout this?  There is, off that direction," he pointed toward a large structure in the distance, "a large house called the Mansion.  It's actually the royal home for the King and Queen.  When we get you back to your family, take Thom and Bren and go there.  You'll find a staff probably guarding the place, but tell them you are my guest.  If they give you any trouble, have them send a messenger to the Pub."

"Once there, you are to make yourselves at home.  You'll find everything there you might want, including a garden out back.  I remember how much you liked gardens."

"Do you think it will be all right with Grizelda?  She doesn't even know me." Capitani asked, concerned.

Pockets just laughed. "Capitani.  If she has put up with me for all these years, I'm very, very sure she will find you an absolute delight.  Keep in mind, though, she's been with Bags and me, so she might be not exactly a lady at all times."

This time it was Capitani's turn to laugh. "Pockets, my friend.  It has been a very long time since we last saw each other."  She cocked one blonde eyebrow.  "I can pretty much promise you that there are times when I am by no means a lady either."

Laughing, the pair continued into town, now more easily companions, re-establishing the parameters of their friendship from long ago and each becoming comfortable with them.

They caught up with Thom and Bren in the Midway.  Bren was trying the claw machine, which Pockets took great detail in telling them was where his adventure here all started, less than a month ago.  Bren stood in the awe of a fifteen year old, listening to the tale of kidnapping, mystery, death and deception.

Thom, a burly man, strong of arm, gentle of face, and easy of smile, shook Pockets' hand and did the "I've heard so much about you." greeting.  Pockets shook the hand back, strong of grip and told Thom how lucky a man he was to have won the hand of Capitani. 

Both men developed an instant like for each other, and Capitani was relieved that it was so.  Pockets could see her shoulders relax from the tension of the anticipated meeting, and a bit of pride rose from his heart with the knowledge that he was a bigger man than he had expected.  His love for Capitani was indeed platonic, but even so, he wasn't sure how he would react meeting her husband.  The sight of the smile on her face and the shine in her eyes was all the reward he needed.  He felt his world shift just a bit, from negative to positive.

Thom put his arm around Capitani and asked "You all right, honey?"  The effects on the day were showing on her face as little lines of stress were appearing.  She ran a hand, shaking just a hardly noticeable bit, over her forehead and nodded.  "Yes, my love.  I'm just a bit tired, but not too terrible.  I will need to rest, and soon, though."  She pointed this at Pockets.

Pockets nodded and announced, "Change of plans!  Rather than you three showing up at the Mansion by yourselves, I'll take you there, get you settled in, and then go back to the War council at the pub.  Come along, I know the short cuts!"  Off he went, stopping briefly to see if the trio was following him.

Thom looked at Capitani as they followed their guide.  "Mansion?  War council?  At the Pub?  Capi, what have you gotten us into this time?"

Capitani place one quivering hand against her husband’s lips.  "Hush honey, honey hush.  I'll explain it to you while we travel.  Do let me lean a bit more against you and pull me closer, won't you dear?  I did not want Pockets to be overly concerned with me, so I did not let him know how truly worn I am. It's enough he knows I'm ill."

Thom raised an eyebrow at this. "Pockets knows you're ill? Is that wise, love?"

Capitani gave a small bark of laughter.  "Darling Thom, Chester Pockets is one of those rare people that I would trust my very life with.  Granted, I don't know if I would trust him with the lives of many other folks, but with mine and the lives of the ones I love, I suspect he would walk through the burning fires of hell itself."  She looked up at her husband.  "You like him, don't you?"

"Yes I do." Thom said. "There's just something ... odd about him.  I can't help but like him.  He's a bit like you were... are.  Full of life.  Maybe a bit rougher, maybe a bit sadder.  But certainly full of life."

Capitani patted her husband’s broad chest. "Thank you, honey.  I needed to hear that.  He is sadder than when I first knew him. He is that." She leaned in while they walked and nuzzled Thom's chest like a kitten.  When she straightened back up, she turned to Bren.  "What about you sprout? What do you think of my friend Pockets?"

Bren was busy looking at everything around with the curiosity of a young man.  "I think he's just fine, mom.  Do you think he really did all those things he said he did?  What do you think he means by War council?  Is there going to be a war?"

She reached over and tousled the top of Bren’s shaggy brown hair, which caused him to do the 'Aw, Mom' look he had perfected over the years. 

"I believe", she said, "every single thing that Pockets told you, honey.  Way back when I first met him, back when I was younger than you, he was already getting into so much trouble it was amazing how he got out of it alive.  It makes sense to me that when he got older, well, the adventures he would get into would somehow be bigger, and the escapes would be bigger, too.  And if we did walk into this kingdom at the beginning of a war, I rather expect that, between Pockets and his friends Bags and Grizelda, it will all turn out all right."

She looked at both her men, the most important people in her life.  She smiled with all her heart when she said "I want you two to understand something.  You two are my breath, my heartbeats.  You two have given me life in ways I could never, ever, ever, ever explain.  I love you with all my heart."

"But Pockets?  He saved my life long ago, raised me up to the point where I could live, so that I could eventually meet you, Thom, and bear you, Bren.  He's my friend, and I love him, too.  Different than you two, but just as strong in some ways."  She looked up ahead where Pockets was jigging along and singing off tune, far happier than when she saw him in the blacksmith's.  Capitani laughed and Thom chuckled.

"Is he mad, Capi?" Tom asked, smiling and not in an unkind way..  "He's certainly odd enough."

"Yes, my love.  He's odd, magical, and incredibly mad in his own specialness." 

She smiled.  "Perhaps, in a very small way, I get to repay the debt, and maybe this time I'll save his life."

"Well, where the hell is he?"  Bags was very irritated, pacing back and forth.  "And what do you mean the merchants are gone?" 

Harve had just come back from checking the two places he was sure he would find Pockets.  He had run to the blacksmith's and not finding Pockets there, he ran to the gate, where the merchants of Bangala were supposed to be encamped.

"I'm sorry Bags, but he wasn't anywhere to be found.  The Gateman said the merchants were standing around talking one moment, and the next they were gone.  When I searched, I found a hole dug under the gate.  I guess they dug it while nobody was paying attention and just sort of... slipped away.  We filled in the hole, and I posted two of the bigger boys there to watch it."

"Great! That's just great."  Bags stumped around for a bit, glaring at Harve, knowing it wasn't his fault all this was happening, but wanting a target to vent his frustration on.  Grizelda sat quietly, trying hard not to interject.  She knew that when Bags was like this, the best thing to do was to let him blow and go till the steam was all out of his sails.  That, however, could take quite a while.

"You don't suppose he was kidnapped, do you?" Bags asked.  "I mean again."  No answer was forthcoming.  "Do you think he could have run away with those merchants?  Back to Bangala."  He asked this directly of Grizelda rather than at the floor, walls or ceiling.

She cleared her throat and said "No, Bags.  I don't think he ran off with the merchants.  I left him at the blacksmiths and I was pretty clear about what he was going to do.  He's still here, he's just not where we think he is."

Briggs came up to Bags and offered that he and the other old men go looking for him.  "It's possible that he just got lost, Bags. He really doesn't know his way around, you know."

"If there's one thing Pockets doesn't get is lost." Bags said.  "He may be confused, he may be sometimes unsure, but he never gets lost.  In the middle of a blinding sandstorm, he can cover the last 20 miles we walked.  If he went from the front gate to the blacksmith's, he can find his way here." 

"So, he's either dead, which I doubt, or he's found something shiny and followed it."  He took a seat at the head of the meeting table.  "So we wait.  And while we wait, the enemy is outside our wall." 

He looked at Harve and said "Any news from the wall?"

Harve shook his head and said "No, sir.  Nothing has changed since they set up camp outside the gates.  We estimate they are just outside of bow range." 

The first report, over 3 hours ago, had the bandits simply riding around the wall, stopping every so often to check the spot where the wall met the sand. The second report had them putting up camp just outside the gate, a spot from where they had, apparently, not moved.

Bags looked over at the old men, who he dubbed the Gray Brigade, and asked, "What do you think, boys?"

Briggs, who had been chosen as the leader of the Grays, said "Most desert folks don't attack at night.  They may plan, plot, skulk, and do a dirty deed now and again under the light of the moon, but they don't attack."

Bags drummed his fingers on the table, looking towards the staircase for Pockets.  "Do we have any plans to take the attack to them?  Or are we just going to wait them out?"

Briggs stroked his wispy beard and said, "That is an option, but I suspect it's not the best option.  With an army that large, they more than likely have a supply line back to their base, where ever that may be."  He looked over at the rest of the Gray Brigade.  They all nodded, some voicing their agreement.  "We think that tomorrow, we should see if they want to parlay, hear their terms, if there are any, under a flag of truce."

Bags asked, "You think they'll honor a flag of truce?"

Briggs answered, "We suspect these are not your typical bandits, Bags.  For one thing, there's about two hundred of them.  For another thing, they are incredibly well organized.  They are more like an army than a group of bandits.  We've seen their sentries, and the tactics of riding round the wall... that's typical army, looking for a weakness in our structure."

"That's because they aren't bandits.  They're the Army of Bangala." Pockets voice came from the stairs, and he stood at the top of them.  "Well, now." He said, looking at the faces gathered around the table. "Ain't this a serious bunch"

"Where have you been?" Bags demanded.  Grizelda crossed over to Pockets, took him by the elbow and led him to the other side of the table, away from Bags. 

"You were supposed to be here hours ago." she hissed.

"Look, guys, I know this seems really serious.  Barbarians at the gate and all.  It's really not, though.  They only want one thing."

"And I suppose you know what that one thing is?" Bags demanded.

"You sure have become the demanding sort since you became king, Bags."  He looked at Grizelda and asked, "Has he been this way since I left?"

Not smiling, Grizelda said "What's the one thing, Pockets?"

Pockets, turned placed both hands on the table, and said "Me.  They want me."

Bags exploded.  "You!  What did you do now, you half pint bottle of sour mash?  Who did you piss off this time."  He huffed and puffed and said "I've half a mind to toss you to them, if it will get them off our backs.  All this time we've been thinking it was a war party, and you're telling me that all they want is you?"

"Yeah, it's good to see you too, Bags." Pockets said.  "Look.  The Caliph wasn't too keen on me and Harve being there in the first place, was he, Harve?"

Harve agreed. "He didn't act very hospitable.  It took us three days to explain what we wanted, and we were still under constant guard.  Well... I was.  I think he thought Pockets was some sort of mad man or jester or something."

"Yeah, thanks, Harve." Pockets said with a crooked smile.  "The thing is, until I swore my service to him, he thought I was a joke, and he thought Harve was the real power.  He thought I was just the translator."  He grabbed a mug from the table and drained it.

"And then?" Bags prompted.

"And then, when I proposed to Vive, which, by the way, was a really stupid thing to do, he realized that we, Harve and me, were nothing more than errand boys.  He realized that neither one of us had much power at all.  So he agreed.  No skin off his nose.  But he had a plan, see."  He grabbed someone else's mug and drained it dry.

"And that was?"  Bags prompted again.

"He'd let me and Harve come back with some of Bangala's stuff, so that it would appear legit."  Pockets turned to Harve.  "Did you tell them about being attacked on the desert?"

"Yeah, he told us.." Bags interrupted. "Pockets, skip to the end will you?  Why do they want you?"

"Oh," said Pockets, "that's easy. No way in the seven rings of hell would he let me marry one of his handmaidens.  If I hadn't of been so stupid, I would have figured that out. So these guys are here to make sure I don't make it back to Bangala... at least not alive."

Bags was drumming his fingers slowly on the table.  "They sent two hundred men to kill you?  Come on, Pockets.  I mean, folks have wanted to kill you before; heck I've thought about it a time or two, but two hundred men?"

"Okay, so maybe I was only telling part of the story." Pockets said, shrugging.  "Damien!" he roared down the staircase, "We're getting awfully dry up here!"  Looking at Bags face, he hurried on.

"Okay, so we were attacked in the desert, right?"  Bags nodded.  "That was just a test, see, to see how good we were at fighting.  That was where I did something smart and stupid at the same time.  Using my boom apples, we beat the bad guys, but I also let them know that we had stuff that they did not."

He looked over at Harve.  "I can't believe you didn't recognize some of the bandits.  Remember that big guy in the tent with the big knife? He was one of the ones that got away. I figure he rode back to Bangala, told the Caliph what had happened, and the Caliph sent an army, who he already had together to follow us here."

"So..." Bags began, "If I get what you are telling me, the Caliph wants your little horse apple trick?  And you?"

"Bags, I suspect that he wants more than that.  These folks live in the desert.  They have very set rules and restrictions they live by to survive out there.  They have one incredible religion that does not like outsiders at all.  I suspect that what they are doing here is one: ruining my honeymoon, but big surprise, I ain't going back there anyway, and two: wanting to kill us all and take the kingdom for themselves.  We have a pretty nice set up you know.  Safe from sandstorms, high walls that protect us from bad guys and one other thing, which is something they really want."

"Other than you?" Bags asked.

"Water, Bags."  Pockets crossed over to the stairwell, was about to yell down again, when a serving girl showed up.  He took the mugs and brought them back to the table.  "She was kinda cute." he said to Grizelda.  "What's her name?"

"Pockets..." Bags took a deep breath and said, "Okay. They are here to kill you, kill me and Griz, everyone, move in and take over the kingdom.  Is there any good news?"

"Griz, see if you can get her name for me, okay?" Pockets turned back to Bags.  "Sure there's good news.  These guys are wimps. Sure they have big swords.  Sure they will fight to the death.  Sure they smell bad, but hey, they live in the desert.  But we have one thing that they don't have."

"And what would that be, Pockets?"  Bags asked.

"Yes." Pockets answered.

"What yes?" Bags asked, confused.

"That's what we have. The secret weapon." Pockets answered.

Grizelda said "Pockets, we don't know what the secret weapon is."

It was Pockets' turn to look confused. "But he just said..."  A light came on. To Bags he said "OH!  You were asking me what it would be, Pockets, right?"

Slowly, through clenched teeth, patience being a tough virtue, Bags said "Yesssss.  Please, Pockets.  What is the one thing we have that they don't have?"

Pockets took a long swallow of his ale, and smiling largely, looked around the room at Bags, Harve, The Gray Brigade and Grizelda.  "Why me, of course."

Briggs looked at Pockets and said "That is a mighty large brag, sir"

Pockets just smiled and replied "Oh, it's no brag.  See, the guys that survived the raiding party ran back and told the Caliph about my little horse apples."  He looked over at Harve and asked "You did tell these guys about them, didn't you"

Harve, caught off guard, stuttered "Well, yeah, Pockets.  I just had to."

Pockets said "It's ok, Harve.  Once something has been invented, it can't be uninvented."  He turned back to Briggs.  "I'm sure part of why we haven't been attacked yet is because they don't know how many of those things we have.  That gives us a bit of time.  Maybe a day or so."

"And how many of them do we have?" Briggs asked.

"Oh, not as many as they might think, and that's part of our advantage.  They also don't know how many of us there are that can fight." He scanned the Gray Brigade.  "You folks are oldsters, from many lands, from many wars, yes?"

The Brigaders looked among themselves and nodded, some voicing "Aye", or "Yes".

Pockets nodded.  "So here, in you ... what?" he counted quickly, "Fifteen, we probably have something like nearly six hundred years of experience.  Granted, some of you may have pretty terrible soldiers, or some of you may have been cowards." 

This brought a few loud grumbles and a few shouts, but Pockets continued loudly over it, "But I don't think so, otherwise you wouldn't be here at all." This placated the Brigaders a bit, though some still stared at him with angry eyes.

Bags said "Pockets, I think you'd do better if you just got to the point.  You aren't making many friends."

Pockets registered the faces staring at him and said "Um. Okay.  The point is there are about two hundred soldiers out there, all with really sharp blades.  The point is that I will absolutely refuse to use any of my little booms to kill any of them."

This brought a roar from the Gray Brigade and a shouted "What?  Why not?" from Bags.

Pockets turned to Bags and said "Because," he said, loudly, "I do not want to be remembered as the person that created something that kills", and he emphasized the word, "people at a distance.  The very idea that we now have the ability to kill people at a distance just turns my stomach."  He turned to Grizelda.  "You can understand that, can't you, Griz? It's just something that I will not do." 

Grizelda started to speak but Bags interrupted her, "But you said that things that are invented cannot be uninvented.  So what's the difference?"

"The difference, Bags," Pockets explained, "is that I won't be the one responsible. I have already shoved the ingredients for them far, far away in my head where even I can't find them, so don't ask me to create any more, cuz I just won't"  He crossed his arms and stopped talking because there erupted an immediate outcry from all the soldiers at the table.

Bags and Briggs and the other Brigaders shouted and pounded and demanded that Pockets give up the formula. He was accused of being a traitor, he was accused of not loving his kingdom, and Pockets just sat on his chair, silent, humming to himself and rocking gently.

It was Grizelda that came to his rescue. "Stop it! Listen to all of you!" She stood next to Pockets and glared at the men assembled. "If Pockets doesn't want to give up the formula for his...", she turned to him, but he was somewhere else, and couldn't be reached, "... little toys, he won't.  I've been around him long enough to know he just... simply... won't."

She turned to Bags.  "YOU should be ashamed of yourself."  She glared at Bags with fierce intensity. "How many times has he come up with some screwball plan and saved our lives?  How many times?""

Bags met her glare for glare for a long moment.  Then he dropped his gaze and murmured "Too many to count, Griz." 

"How many?" She demanded again.

Bags raised his eyes and said clearly, "Too many to count, Griz.  But he's come in here with an answer..."

"But it's not his answer!  His.." she reached for the word.  "Booms... that would be YOUR answer." She shouted out.  "Your old warrior answer.  Kill the person you recognize as your enemy.  And you want Pockets, who has never hurt a single person in his whole life to give you the answer to kill them without even looking them in the eye?  Without giving them a chance to sit down and discuss what has made them your enemy?  What do you think that would do to him?" 

Bags had no answer.

Grizelda continued.  "And what about Harve?"  The young man looked startled to hear his name.  "Do you want this to be the example you set for him?  You who always said that there isn't such a thing as an enemy, just someone who thinks they want what you have?"

"But Griz," Harve protested, "they want to kill US!"

"We don't know that." She shot back.  "We just assume they want to because they have a lot of men with swords outside our gates.  We haven't even tried to talk to them yet!"

She turned toward the Gray Brigade. "Look you. This man is someone you don't know. But I do.  He does." and she jerked a thumb toward Bags. "This man is not a traitor, and he hasn't been here long enough to know if he loves it or not.  And you are not helping his opinion any!"

The Brigaders shuffled their feet, scooted their chairs uncomfortably.

"I do know this." she continued in a voice to be reckoned with.  "He loves Bags, and he loves me, and he'd give his life to keep us from harm.  If he says he isn't going to use his toys to help you kill, he's not going to, and all the rings of hell won't make him."

She turned to look at Pockets, his eyes far away, and crouched down on her knees to face him.  "What I hope it means is that he has another idea, percolating away in his little brain.  That's true, isn't it?"  she asked of him.  "You do have another idea, right Pockets?"

Pockets stopped humming, smiled at Grizelda and said "Hi, Griz!  Did I miss anything?"

Bags said "Oh, just end of the world, two hundred trained warriors wanting to kill us all, and Grizelda tryin to convince us that you have another idea 'bout how to beat the bad guys."

"Oh, that." Pockets said.  "Well, I'm working on something dealing with hydraulic pressure, but I'm not sure I can pull it off.  Look, I'm sorry I'm not going to turn over the booms to you, really I am.  There are some other tactics we can use.  And that's where you guys", he pointed to the Gray Brigade, "come in."

"Bags, you've saved my bacon more than once because you're a survivor.  You guys are all survivors too, else you wouldn't be here.  Like I said, you have over six hundred years of experience between you.  While I'm working on this idea I have, I need you to keep the bad guys busy."  He turned back to Grizelda.  "Griz, you're pregnant, so there's gonna be a limit to what you can do.  I do know this, though."  He smiled broadly.  "You may have the best secret weapon of all of us."

He let the pause grow and then turned to Harve.  "Harve?  Didn't the merchants mention that they'd really like to visit the Cathouse?"

Grizelda said "It's a social club now, Pockets."

Pockets just looked at her, unblinking.  "When did this happen?  Never mind.. Okay, it's a social club.  There are still ... umm...  working women there?"

Grizelda nodded, grudgingly.

"Excellent!  I think, what needs to be done now is culling the wheat from the chaff."

Grizelda shook her head furiously.  "No! I absolutely forbid it.  You will not use the women that way!"

"Griz, Griz, Griz!  I wouldn't never, ever put the women in danger.  No way, no how."  Pockets put up his hands in sincerity.  "But I do know this, in every army, there is a certain amount of soldiers that don't really want to be wherever they are."  He turned toward the Brigade.  "Right?"

A few of the old men nodded. 

"Oh, come on!  How many of your old comrades, from where ever you came from, sorta disappeared?"

Briggs spoke up, saying "Yes, it's true.  In every army there are those that become disillusioned and fade away.  We call those 'deserters'." He looked around at every Gray Brigader there.  "I think it would be safe to say that each and every one of us may have been tempted one time or another.  The only thing that kept us where we were was a sense of duty."

Slowly the other Brigaders, nodded in agreement.  There was one, the butcher in the town, who said "Yeah. Desertin' is an evil, tis true.  Don't mean I didn't think bout it.  I hated killin' kids."

This brought a round of the other Brigaders  relating their own experiences, the times they came close, but not close enough to just quitting the whole army experience.  Stupid decisions by those above them, attacking innocents, burning villages that had nothing to do with the conflict.  All had become disillusioned eventually.

Pockets let them go till they ran down.  "And yet..." he scanned them all, one by one, "you are all here.  You are no longer in the armies of whoever you used to work for.  Why is that?"

Briggs shrugged and said, "We just got tired of it all, Pockets.  Got tired of the killing, the long marches, the sitting and waiting for something to happen.  When the time to retire came up, we did.  Granted, some of us chose the time to retire, some of us didn't."

Pockets let that pass, knowing better than to point out there was no difference between deserting and choosing the time to retire.  "Okay.  So, from the stories that Bags has told me about his time in the military, most of the time you just sat around waiting for something to happen, yes?"

Nods, words of agreement.

"And that gets pretty boring, yes?"

Another round of agreement.

"And if you got an opportunity to see some entertainment, how many of you would have jumped at the chance?"

One of the Brigade, in the back, asked "In the form of a nekkid woman?  I would have jumped more than the chance!" This brought a round of laughter. Another said "Yeah, back when you could still jump!  How long has it been, Chuck? Thirty years?"  More laughter, and some good natured kidding back and forth.

Bags let the laughter die before he asked "What's on your mind, Pockets?"

Pockets turned to Grizelda and said "Griz, I will not put any of your girls in harms way, okay? I promise."  She nodded, but still looked dubious.  "These guys will see to it, really."  A round of agreement from the Brigaders. "I do have a serious question to ask, though."

"Can any of them act?"

Griz stood up, puffed out her chest and said "Can they act!! How do you think they convince all the doddering old fools they are masters in the bedroom!! Can they act?  Hmph."

Pockets grinned broadly. "I guess that answers that.  No, Griz.  What I meant was, if they were given something to read, something prepared, could they remember it and perform it?  THAT sort of acting."

"Oh, I knew what you were meaning.  I'm sure they can, they've been doing it for years.  What did you have in mind?"

Griz, I'd like for you to meet some friends of mine.  They just blew into town last night and I've got them put up in the Mansion.  I think they are part one in our winning this little war, if they can do what I think they can."

He looked over at the Gray Brigade.  "How bout you guys?  Ever do any performing?"  A few hands went up.  "Good, that's a start. The rest of you can do a part too.  You don't need to really act, you just need to stand there."

So it was agreed.  He and Grizelda would go meet with Capitani and her family, then they would meet with the girls.  Bags remembered Capitani as that 'skinny kid that you saved at the orphanage? The one that ran away with the circus?'.  He told Pockets to deliver his hellos and to pass on a hug or two.  He would stand behind with the Brigade and make plans for any battle that might come along.

The Gray Brigade was rather uncertain how it would all work out, but Bags quieted them by saying, "Look.  If we can win this battle without killing anyone, wouldn't it be worth it?  Pockets may be crazy at times, but he's never let me down, okay?  Let's just see how this pans out.  If it goes south, then we'll be there to pick up the slack."

Before he left with Grizelda, Pockets went over to Bags and whispered to him, "I really do think you are taking this job far to serious.  What's say when this is all over, you and I find a bit of time to just relax, play some darts, pinch some waitresses?"

Bags nodded, and stopped Pockets with a hand on his arm. "Will there be beer?"

Pockets smiled largely and said "Darn tootin! Or... at least something close to it. I'm gonna show Damien how to brew it.  It's pretty easy, actually.  Takes a barrel and some of the hops I got from the Caliph.  I suspect it's something we can grow here, since geographically we're pretty much the same place."

At the Mansion, Pockets introduced Grizelda to Capitani.  A little history was given, as to how Capitani and Pockets met in the orphanage.  Not much history other than that was given, because there is some history that can't be told and have it interpreted right.  It was evident to Grizelda, that Pockets and Capitani shared much more than simple friendship.  She said as much to Pockets when she had him alone.

"It's complicated Griz." Pockets said.  "It's not love as in LOVE as in living as man and wife.  It's Love as in it was like we knew each other the moment we saw each other, like there was a part of me that was in a part of her and vice versa.  Deeper than siblings, lighter than sex, okay?  Can I get away with saying that and have you drop it and just accept it that way?"

Grizelda and Capitani got along famously.  They became friends right away, especially talking bout Pockets like he wasn't there, and gardening, and performing.  Grizelda listened and marveled at the stories of being on the road.  She sighed with contentment, as she had her own stories, from long ago, when she would travel and perform as well.  It was as if they were sisters, but had never met.

"See?" Pockets said.  "It's like that for me too.  She's part of the family, and she's not been here for more than a few hours.  Well... I've known her most of my life, but you recognize her too, don't you?"

Grizelda nodded.  "She's definitely family.  Thom is a perfect gentleman, and funny too.  Reminds me of Bags, or like what Bags used to be." She sighed.

"Yeah, I know." Pockets said, with an arm on her shoulder.  "That's something we're gonna fix as soon as this is over, I promise.  I'm worried bout him too.  He's way too serious, and has been since this whole thing started.  Good God and Goddesses!  Has it really been less than two months ago?"

"Well, never mind." he continued.  "If it goes according to plan, he'll be right as rain and back to his normal goofy self in no time."

Pockets went off to find Bren leaving Grizelda to talk to Capitani.  "You and he are very close, aren't you?" Grizelda asked.

"Oh yes." Capitani said.  "At least I hope so.  I haven't found anyone like him in the whole world.  When I left the orphanage, I wasn't sure I would ever see him again, and here he is!  It's quite an amazing thing."

"He's a bit odd, but very lovable." Grizelda was searching.

"He's odder than back in the orphanage, yes."  Capitani paused.  He told me his history, Grizelda.  I'm surprised that he survived it all, at least as sane as he is.  I'm glad he had you and Bags to support him.  He's really pretty delicate."

"Yeah, he's something, that's for sure." Grizelda agreed.  "I don't know if I'd call him delicate, though."

"Oh, he is." Capitani said.  "You can see it in his eyes, and hear it in his voice.  There's a sadness there.  I suspect it's just waiting for the right someone to come along.  Has he ever been with anyone?  Besides this latest mess, I mean?"

"There's been..." Grizelda thought about it.  "No, there's not really been anyone in his life, not the way you mean, I think."

"Ah."  Capitani said.  "That's sad, really."

"I suppose." Grizelda said.  "I think, though, that he would not be Pockets if he had found someone on a permanent basis.  I think anyone would have constrained him, crippled that imagination or that magnificent brain of his, and he wouldn't be who or what he is."

"Maybe." Capitani said.  "Perhaps it just takes the right person."

Grizelda looked at her with a solid gaze.  "Someone like you?"

Capitani laughed.  "Oh my!  Perhaps years ago, before Thom.  Maybe then it might have been a lot different." She reached over and touched Grizelda's hand.  "No, Grizelda.  Pockets and I are very good friends, nothing more.  There is love there, yes. But it is a love different than that between man and wife.  It's different between even brother and sister.  It's hard to explain."

Pockets came in with Bren in tow.  "Capi, I need to use Bren's brains." He paused and laughed at himself. "Bren's brains.  It's just funny.   Anyway, I need him to write a show.  It needs to have some romance, it needs to have some comedy.  I need you to help him with it."

"All right. Does this have anything to do with this 'war council' you were talking about?" Capitani asked.

"Yep. Ten points to the lady.  It possible that Bren may very well win this war with his little writing."  He sat next to Capitani and took her hands.  "You gave me the idea, telling me how proud you were of his story telling ability." 

He turned to Bren and said, "Now Bren, you're a bit young for some of this, I think.  Your mother here is going to help you with some very grown up ideas of love and romance. Okay?"  Bren nodded, surprised that he had been asked to do this, surprised that his words were what may win this war, surprised that an adult was giving him so much responsibility.

"Good Lad." Pockets clapped him on the shoulder.  "Capitani, we don't need anything very bawdy.  Typical story about man and woman falling in love.  Bit of safe seduction, very little, and I mean VERY little actual contact.  AND, it has to be done more in look and feel than in word. Words will be important, but unfortunately, the audience doesn't understand a word we say." He looked askance at her.  "Unless you speak Bangala?  Maybe?  By chance?"

"No, Pockets. I don't.  But it's possible that Thom does.  He traveled quite a bit, back when he was just a doctor.  Thom!" she called.

Thom came down from one of the bedrooms above.  "I'm sorry, honey. I was laying down.  I didn't know we had guests."

"We don't have guests, silly. This is Grizelda, and we are the guest of hers and Bags. Bags isn't here, but she is.  That's not important right now, though.  Thom, have you ever heard of a place called Bangala?"

Thom came down and joined the other four.  "Bangala.  Bangala. Hmmm.  Maybe.  Tent city kind of place?  Run by a big fat guy in a tall hat?"

"That's the place, Thom" said Pockets.  "Can you speak the language? Or better yet, write it?"

"Yeah, I can write a little bit of it. I spent a few months with them long time ago. Nobody else here can read it though.  What's this about?"

Pockets outlined his idea, and as he went, Thom nodded more and more.  "Pockets, you don't need someone to read it or write it.  You need someone that can teach other people to speak the words correctly.  You need a language coach."

Pockets nodded vigorously. "Yes! That's what I need.  I can do part of it, but I'm not that good." He thought a second.  "Well, maybe I am that good, but I'm going to be busy. I need you to work with your wife and son to write a romantic show, Thom.  Think you can do it?"

Thom smiled and said "Sure! I'll just use Capi as my model.  It's easy when you already love someone. Romance around her is like breathing.  Know what I mean?"

Pockets nodded and murmured, "Yeah, I do."  Louder, he said "Ok.  You guys work on that. I don't need much, just about half an hour's worth.  Can you have it by tomorrow?"

Capitani stood and saluted.  "Yes Sir, General Pockets!  We will not fail you!"  She crossed over to him, hugged him strongly and whispered in his ear, "This is something I always dreamed about.  That we would meet again, face to face."

Pockets looked in her blue eyes and smiled.  "It's good to see you too, Capi.  I'm glad the winds blew us together."  He cleared his throat, looked at Thom and said, "Taint nothin' between us, Thom.  Well... nothing for you to feel threatened by."

Thom crossed over to Pockets and said "You are the great and mighty Pockets, Pockets. I've been hearing about you for years.  It's an honor to meet you, truly it is."  He wrapped his arms around the little man.  "If it hadn't have been for you, I would never have found my Capi.  There is nothing here that threatens me, and as far as I'm concerned, you're just another part of the family."  He leveled his gaze at Pockets.  "Is it okay with you?"

Pockets was caught off guard by the attention.  His eyes welled up, his throat closed, his heart overflowed. There wasn't anything he could say.  He just nodded.

Grizelda cleared her throat, and said "He's so cute when he's speechless.  Doesn't happen very often."

Pockets punched her on the arm, cleared his own throat and said "Come on, Griz.  I need to talk to you about the part your girls will have, and I need to do it on the move."  He looked back at Thom, Capitani, and Bren.  "Guys, I'll be back in the morning." He paused.  "And thanks."  He went out the front door.

"He didn't want you to see him cry, you know?" Grizelda said.

"Yeah, we know." Thom said.  "Go take care of him."

Grizelda nodded and left.

She caught up with him just outside. "That was very sweet, Pockets."

"Yeah, I know." He wiped his nose on his sleeve. "But whatcha gonna do?"  He headed down the path towards the Keep.

"Why are we going to the Keep?" Grizelda asked.

"We're not, Griz.  We're going to the cistern.  You know.. I've never gotten a good look at it, and I want to.  I have a suspicion that it will be very useful.  On the way, I'm going to explain to you what you girls are going to do."

"The cistern?  What can be useful there?  It's just a big old well."

Pockets turned and looked at her with a devilish grin on his face.  "Ever thump on a drum, Griz?"

Two hundred faces turned toward the gates of Tears as they slowly open.  Four hundred eyes gazed upon a lone figure, dressed in a silky gown of grass green, stepped out.  Two hundred mouths dropped agape when they realized how little the gown covered.

"Soldiers of Bangala," Brenda said, pushing back a stray hair nervously.  "I know you cannot understand me, but we are here to present to you a performance by the ladies of Zelda's Social Club" She bowed, and one breast dropped from her gown. Quickly, embarrassed, she placed it back into its fold.

Two out of two hundred fainted dead away.

"This is the story of found love, lost love, and love regained and eternal"  A bright light lit up behind her, shining through her gown, showing off what little the gown had hid.  "The performance tonight is called 'For the Love of Stone.'  Please join me in presenting the players."  Gently, she clapped her hands together and announces:

"Playing the part of the Girl is Jo, the darling of the Social Club."  She continued to applaud quietly as Jo, dressed in white gauze, came out from behind the gate.

One hundred and ninety eight gasps rose from the assembled warriors.

"The part of the Boy is played by Billie. A tougher one woman you will never find!"  Billie was dressed in a very tight fitting tunic, so that her cleavage, as meager as it might be, was accentuated, with a little help from charcoal smudge.

A few in the audience whistled, only to be pummeled to silence by those around them.  A few did not rise again.

"The Stone in tonight's performance is to be performed by Sassy, as hard a rock as if there ever was one." Sassy skulked forward, dressed in dark black leather, and scowled out at the soldiers.

There rose a roar from the crowd, in appreciation and recognition of another warrior in their midst. It quickly died when Brenda raised her hand for silence.

"The dove will be played by relative newcomer, Capitani, who will soar her way into your heart."  Capitani, much more conservatively dressed in her black and white harlequin, pranced proudly forward, did a solitary handspring, and bowed deeply.

There was laughter and a bit of applause through the ranks watching.

"And I," said Brenda, "will be paying the part of the witch, as evil a woman as you might want to meet!"  She stepped forward, took her place, and bowed, once again proving how much of a woman she was.

There was not a dry mouth in the crowd.

The women bowed, revealing many of their not so hidden attributes, and took their places.

There was a brief stirring in the audience as the soldiers of Bangala, angled for position.  A few fist fights broke out, teeth were lost, ribs were cracked, as the stronger strove to convince the weaker that they did indeed have the proper ticket.

"And so," Brenda said loudly, "It begins."

Jo, doing her very best to play a chaste young girl, yearning for her love, batted her eyes and sighed, mightily.  In the enraptured audience, the men from Bangala blushed, each and every one.

"If they keep this up, the Bangalarians will end up dying of heart attacks."  Briggs said to the other Brigaders.  "Look at them out there.  They're eating this up!"

"Well," said one of the ones behind him. "Wouldn't you?"

The Gray Brigade stood just behind the gate, to guard the women and hustle them back behind the wall, in case things should turn ugly.

Thom turned to Pockets and said "She's loving it, being on stage again.  Makes me nervous to think how close she is to those people out there."

Pockets just nodded.  He hadn't wanted to include her, but Capitani's argument was that there needed to be a dove, because there was one in the story.  As there were only four girls, and none of them were particularly dove-like, she was the logical choice.  Having run out of time, Pockets and Thom had to agree. 

Grizelda just smiled and said, "This'll make sure you fellows keep a close watch and keep them safe."

"I had no worries about the safety of the women." Pockets said.  "The Bangala, I suspect, have very strong ethics or morals regarding them.  Probably something on the order of 'Thou shalt not touch unless invited' or something to that effect.  I mean.. I wasn't sure one hundred percent, but I was pretty darn near sure."

Thom turned to him and asked, "What made you so sure?  I mean, I knew, mostly.  I wasn't sure that they would feel the same way towards the women of the enemy, but still... I was pretty confident, otherwise I wouldn't have let Capi perform.  But I lived with them for six months. You were there... what?  A week?  What was your clue?"

"The society is geared towards the protection and oppression of women." Pockets explained.  "Men are at a premium, so they aren't cared for as much.  I noticed the dress and demeanor of the women, as well as how they were treated.  The Caliph has more women around him than any other person.  Not sure if I envy him or not, but regardless, it's a sign of power as well."

"In nomadic societies, women are also protected as they are the child-bearers, which means that a man can be replaced, but a woman of child bearing age? That's true value, especially in a society that is trying to grow.  Men you can replace. After all...  one man can impregnate a large number of women, but women can only get pregnant once per session."

"I just applied that logic that if that thinking was that deeply ingrained in the society, then the men of that society would feel the same, regardless of what society the women belonged to."

Thom nodded and said "You're one smart cookie, Pockets."  Pockets nodded back.  "Yeah, I know."

Briggs came over.  "Okay.  The men are all ready in case anything goes wrong, but I don't see that happening, yet. So I just have one question. I heard you talking about the societal taboos, and I can understand that. Our women aren't even speaking the right language.  So why is it the Bangalarians are so caught up in it? They are laughing in the right places, they are even booing in the right places."

Pockets looked at the Brigadier and explained, "Some languages are universal, Briggs.  Everyone knows who a good guy is.. dressed in white.  Everyone knows who a bad guy is...dressed in black. That parts easy."

"Now, the reason why I didn't include any men in this little show is two fold. I suspected the women would be entirely safe.  But there's a second part.  Music hath charms to sooth the savage breast.  You've heard that before?"

"Sure."

"Okay.  Men and women interpret each other's voice differently.  If a man hears another man, he hears words, phrases, orders.  It's all in how we started, and how we are raised.  IF a man hears a woman, it's entirely different.  He hears music.  Granted, he hears words too, but the words are muddied by the music.  A woman's voice comes out in the form of notes and sound."

One of the oldsters said "That's just cuz you haven't heard MY wife."  The group laughed.

"Ah, but you're still married to her, yes?" Pockets asked.  The oldster nodded. "And think about it.  If you hear a woman's voice that you can't stand, or the voice of a woman that you can't stand, doesn't it sound somehow harsher?  Less kind, less fluid than the voice of the woman you love?"

Eye brows went up, a number of humms came from a number of throats.  "You may have something there, Pockets." Thom said.  "We might have to raise a mug and discuss this sometime, after this is all over"

Pockets smiled and said "Absolutely!"  He looked toward the stage. 

The women were at the point where the witch had enchanted the girl and turned her into a dove.  Capitani was flitting and miming throwing her against the Boy's window. The Soldiers were in rapt attention.  There was no movement, no shifting, nothing but the look of faces that appeared to be the faces of a hundred little boys staring at their very first firefly.

"It looks like things are going well." Pockets noted.  "I don't expect anything to happen until the very end, and then, Briggs, you and your men need to drag those women in her quick as you can.  After that, you and the Brigade can do what they do best."  He started away from the gate.

"Wait! Where are you going?" asked Thom.

"I'll be back in a while. I just have to go light a fire."  He disappeared into the dark of the night.

On stage, the dove Capitani, danced and flitted and dove and somersaulted as doves do.  She cooed and cried as her lost love, the Boy went searching for his lost love, who had been changed into the dove by the evil witch.

The women were brave, having been directed to go into the throng of men.  Pockets assured them that they were perfectly safe and that not one man would lay a hand on them, unless they invited it.  The four girls of Grizelda's were very dubious, and very frightened.  Capitani, however, stood up for Pockets, saying, "If Pockets says it is safe, then it must be safe.  I may be frightened a bit, but I'll be the first one off the stage, so follow my lead"

Off the stage fluttered Capitani, doing cartwheels and handstands.  In her one hand, she carried a red cord, the other end connected to a large ball, held in the lap of Brenda.  The large ball of red cord appeared to be yarn, and the witch was pretending to knit with it.  The Dove, as soon as she had been changed from the Girl, grabbed one end of it and flew off.  The witch never noticed.

In an out she wove, the broken hearted dove, drifting hither and yon among the gathered warriors, who politely moved out of her way to allow her to pass.  Not a soul touched her. Not a soul complained when she placed, in the hands of some a section of the cord, still unwinding from the incredibly large ball of yarn in the witch's lap.

Between rows and columns of soldiers she moved, laying the line of red cord where ever she went. Soon it became a game with the soldiers, as to who would be given a section of the cord next.  Laughter erupted from some of them, as there were grasping hands, wanting to hold the cord, but some of them were slapped playfully.  Capitani would start to place it in one hand, and then, with a wink of her eye, switch and place it in the next fellow's hand.

This was a good game, and soon the Boy followed the Dove, weaving in and out.  Billie carried her own cord, which played out from somewhere hidden behind stage.  The soldiers clapped and those that had not been blessed by the Dove, were blessed with their own section of the red cord by Billie.

Not a single woman was harmed, and when they stopped to playfully wrap, or gently lay the cord in each man's hand, the man would actually avoid contact, would lean back almost fearfully.  As each woman passed, the men would look at each other and nod and laugh.  It was a game, and soldiers rarely get to play when on the march.

Deeper and deeper went the Dove and Boy, until they had wove their way through the entire audience.  Every man had received a part of the cord and every man had been joined by it.  When the two women got to the very back, there stood the leader of the Bangalarian soldiers. The women stopped in their tracks.

Capitani was nearly done in.  Her exhaustion was evident, and Billie looked at her with concern.  "Not to worry, love.  This is what we do, this is the show, and the show must go on." 

The leader, standing tall and handsome, with scarred face and white teeth, smiled at the women as they approached.  Billie, got especially close, and it was Capitani's turn to be concerned.  Billie winked at her, and this did very little to ease Capitani's feelings.

Billie knelt on the ground before the leader, bowed her head, and offered him a section of the cord.  The leader said something, smiled briefly, reached down and lifted Billie's chin so that he could see her face. He gazed at her for a very long time, and then accepted the offering.  Billie stood back up, and with one trembling hand, touched the cheek of the leader, who nodded.

Billie then wove around and around him.  Capitani followed lead, but in the opposite direction. The women wove in and out, and around and about each other, laughing and dancing, until the leader of the Bangalarians was almost hogtied in the thin red cord.

It was not until then, when the leader realized the trick that had been played, that all was going perfectly.  When he was good and well hogtied, he began to suspect something was up.  He tried to free himself from the red cord, and much to his despair, he was good and well tied and unable to free himself. 

He yelled something in his native tongue, and his men attempted to free themselves as well.  The women had done their jobs, and they had done it quickly and had done it without any single soldier knowing what was about.

The army had been captured, caught in a rope woven by women, by actors on a stage.  To make matters worse, it was the red cord that Pockets had brought back from Bangala, so it was something each was familiar with, knowing it to be nigh unbreakable.

Billie placed a gentle kiss on the leader's cheek, and then she and Capitani danced back to the stage.  Needless to say, the leader was left more than just a little frustrated.

Once the women were back on stage, Brenda stepped forward and announced, "Gentlemen, we thank you for your assistance and attention for our little performance."  She gestured to the rest of the troupe.  "Ladies?" she asked. Each woman took a bow in their turn, and then they all bowed together.

Brenda continued, "And now, without further ado, we would like to present to you, your host for this evening.  His Majesty, King Bags, the First!"  The women moved to the left and right side of the stage, while Bags stepped forward, with the other Gray Brigade following up close behind.

Bags looked out over a sea of angry men, tied by a cats-cradle of cord.  He shook his head and said to no one in particular, "Well, I'll be damned.  Without any blood what so ever.  Huh."  He strode forward to examine his captives.  "The man is a genius.  I wonder how much of this cord he had.  There must be a mile or more."

Harve stepped up next to Bags and said "He was gathering it the entire time we were there.  He did mention that he thought he had enough to circle the entire kingdom.  That would mean close to twenty five miles."

Both men just looked while the captive Bangalarians struggled in their bonds.  "Harve," said Bags, "tell 'em to settle down."

"Um, Okay."  Harve shouted out a few words that he knew in the Bangala language. The shout he received was ferocious.  He stepped back to where Bags was standing. "Bags, I don't think they like us very much." 

Bags went over and gently cut a piece of the cord from the large ball.  He walked down front and said "Hand me a torch, Harve"

Once handed the torch, Bags yelled out, "Okay!  If you keep yelling, this is what will happen to you!" He applied the torch to the short piece of cord he held, and then yelped when it flared so quickly he burnt his fingers.  "Damn!  Why didn't he tell me it burned that quick?"

Harve said "I guess you never asked, Bags"

Harve was rewarded with a frown, and Bags said, "You're starting to sound like him."  He paused and continued.  "That's not an insult, by the way.  Just don't do it too much."

Harve smiled and nodded, "Okay, Bags"

Bags nodded toward the captives and said "Tell 'em again, and tell 'em we want to make a deal."

Harve stepped forward again and delivered the message in halting Bangalarian.  To make the point even clearer, the Gray Brigade stepped forward and stood shoulder to shoulder across the front of the cleared area that represented the stage.

From the back of the soldiers, came a shout.  "What was that, Harve?" Bags asked.

"I think," Harve replied, "It's the leader of these guys.  He said something about discussing terms."

"Well, let's go talk to him, shall we?  Briggs, bring your men with us. Come on, Harve." 

Bags stepped down into the crowd, still carrying the torch.  If any of the soldiers made a move towards him, he just pointed with his free hand towards the flame, and smiled like a madman.  The message was effective enough to calm even the strongest struggler.

Harve and the Gray Brigade followed close behind.  Every so often one of the Brigaders would snarl or laugh, which did nothing to help the mood of the captives.  "They look all trussed up, as if it's Hallows Night or something." one of them laughed.

Briggs circled around and confronted the one that made the statement.  "Here now!  Imagine how you'd feel if you suddenly found yourself in their position.  Caught in enemy territory and tied up by a girl!"

The other, an old man named Dane, bowed his head.  "Well, Cap'n.  You got me there.  I'm sorry." He turned to the captives and shouted, "I'm sorry!"  He turned back to Briggs.  "You gotta admit, though.  It is pretty funny.  I've never seen a war won with just a ball of explosive twine."

"Yes, it is.  Damn funny." said Briggs without cracking a smile. "But let's be better than ourselves, shall we?  No need to lord it over them, eh?"

Dane nodded and continued without a word, without a smile.

At the back, Bags stood eye to eye with the leader.  Not a word was said.  Each man gazed into the eyes of the other, sizing each other up.

"Ask him his name, Harve."  Bags said.

Harve barked a few words.  The leader barked something back, then locked his jaw and faced his eyes forward.  He wouldn't say anything more.  Harve recoiled and said, "Huh."

"Well?" Bags asked.

Harve turned to Bags and said "He told me that he would tell his name, but only if the dark haired one was here."

"The dark haired... Who? The woman? What's her name?"

"Billie." Briggs supplied.

"Ok.  Fine." Bags looked through the group of Brigaders and pointed at the one in the very back, a man named Fred.  "You!  Fred!" 

Fred woke up with a start.  He had been scratching himself, and was apparently deep into it.   "Yes, sir, Your Majesty?  What may I do for ye?"

"Quit playing with yourself and go get that woman named..."

"Billie." said Briggs, again.

"Billie." Bags continued.  "Go get her and bring her back"

Fred looked a bit confused, looking back and forth between Briggs and Bags.

"Well?" bellowed Briggs.  "Do as your king commands, man! Go fetch the woman and bring her back!"

Fred bowed, turned and tripped over his feet.  A group of nearby Bangala soldiers laughed, joined by the other Grays.  It was a moment of eased tensions and shared humiliation.

Fred stood up, brushed himself off, and replied with a bit of language that his mother wouldn't have been proud of.  Looking up to find Bags and Briggs looking at him, he blushed, bowed, and scrambled off as he was told.

"Okay. So we wait a few minutes while Fred brings back... um... "

"Billie."  said Harve.

"Yeah.  Billie.  I knew that."  Bags rubbed his chin, and said "Harve, think you can lay out our demands to what’s his name here?  I want to offer him peace, I still want to open trade routes, and I do not want to have to kill him and his men."

Harve nodded and said "I think I can.  Let me see what I can do."  He stepped up to the leader of the Bangalarian army and, haltingly, repeated what Bags had said.

The leader didn't utter a word.  He stared forward at the stage, waiting. Long moments passed in silence.

"Ooookay." said Bags.  "Let's try for round number two.  Tell him that we could simply light this little cord here, and let it do whatever it wants.  If he still feels like not talking, well, fine.  We'll just bury the dead and let the rest stump on home."

Harve looked at Bags and said, "Are you serious?"

"As a heart attack." Bags replied.  "I want this guy to know that the choice is his."

Harve relayed what Bags had said to the tall and silent warrior.  The man's eyes flickered briefly to where Bags stood, then returned back to their stageward gaze.  The muscles in his jaw bunched a bit tighter, and still he said not a word.

"Bags, he's still not saying anything." Harve said.

"By the seven rings, let's just light the damn cord and be done with it!" said Dane.  A few of the Brigaders murmured assent. 

"No." said Bags.  "I don't want to do that, but I don't want him to know I don't want to do that."  He thought a bit and said "Okay.  This was something that I remember from a long time ago.  I was fighting in a war far to the east.  It was a stupid war, as most of them are.  Finally, after most of our men had died, the Generals got together and decided enough was enough.  The two of them met in the middle of the field and wrassled until one of them cried uncle.  We lost, but I gotta tell you, it was just about the smartest thing I ever saw the military ever do."

"What happened to the losers?" Briggs asked.

"They went home." Bags said "So did the winners. The only ones that didn't were the dead."

Nobody had much of an reply to that.

"Ask the lump if he would meet me, man for man, to decide the fate of his men.  Doesn't have to be a fight to the death, just a fair fight.  No weapons, just fists and brain."

Harve passed this onto the leader, who blinked, but didn't say anything.  Another long moment passed before he turned to where Bags stood, and nodded.  "I agree." he said.

"You can speak our language?" Harve asked, astonished.

"Bastard." said Bags. "Oldest trick in the book. Pretending to not speak the language."

"Where is the woman?" asked the Bangalarian.

"She's here!" cried Fred, pulling a resistant Billie behind him.

"You let me go now, or for goddess sake, I'll punch you in a place that will fix it so you don't ever think about breeding again." Billie was throwing words around and causing some of the Brigaders ears to burn.

"That's enough, young lady." said Bags.  "You'll damn well pretend you have a bit of decorum when in the presence of guests..."

Billie, caught unawares, bopped Fred on the back of the head and berated him. "Why didn't you tell me that the King had asked me here?"  She curtsied, and said, "My apologies, your Majesty.  What may I do for you?"

"I didn't ask for you here, Billie." Bags explained.  He tossed a thumb at the Bangalarian warrior and said "He did."

"Oh my."  Billie blushed, and suddenly became very conscious of blushing, as it was something she didn't do very often, if at all.  She went over to the warrior and asked "What can I for you, sir?"

"Tell me your name, lovely one. That is all I ask."

She blushed again, double strength and looked down at the ground.  "My name is Billie.  Billie Jean."

"Billie Jean."  The warrior turned to Bags and said, "Release me.  I want to kneel before this woman."

Bags looked at Harve and nodded.  Harve took his knife, and as before, slowly cut through the bonds that held the warrior.

Once released, the tall man knelt before Billie, who just stood where she was, speechless.  "My name is Quantico Arnata.  When you approached me and touched my face, you set my heart a flame.  Granted, you aren't the loveliest woman I have ever seen, but your soul is.  May I see you when this bit of stupidity is over?"

Billie stuttered, flustered, not knowing what to say.  Then her eyes narrowed.  "Say. You speak our language pretty good for a barbarian.  Where'd you learn it?" she asked suspiciously.

"I went to school at a village far away from here, over the mountains, Billie Jean.  I learned your language there before returning to Bangala." Quantico explained.  "I became General of the army because of my schooling.  I used to believe we were the greatest fighting force on the planet.  I was wrong, of course.  If we were the greatest force, we would never have been beaten by women."

Bags said "You weren’t beaten by women alone, bub."

He turned to Bags and said, "I agree with what you said about war and dying.  When you asked to fight me, man on man, I knew you were a warrior of honor.  How could I do anything but accept?"  Returning his gaze to Billie he said, "Billie Jean, I have much to talk to you about, to ask you.  It will, unfortunately, have to wait until after I have defeated this man here."

Billie, still unbelieving in the words she was hearing, stuttered, "Um. This man is our king. King Bags."

"King?" Quantico exclaimed.  "Why is he out here, and not safely inside the walls?  What sort of king is it that would risk his life to fight with his men?"

Briggs stepped close to Quantico and explained.  "He is the very best of kings, sir.  He is a king that knows what it is like to be on the line, to risk his life.  Any other king is merely second rate."

Quantico was silent, looking between Briggs, Bags, and Billie.  His gaze wandered across his own men, tied and bound, as they watched him.  "Perhaps so." he said at last.  "Perhaps it is so."

He stood up, crossed to Bags and met him eye for eye.  Bags returned the gaze coolly.

"So, King Bags.  Will you release my men before or after we ... how did you put it?  Wrassle?"

Pockets pushed through the crowd, and into the town. There appeared to be just about every one in the kingdom, pushing for position to see what was going on.  It would be a fine performance, he knew. He had watched Capitani drill the girls in their roles, and the girls had admirably memorized the short story written by Bren.

He knew he should be there, in case there as interpretation needed between the actors and the Bangalarian soldiers, but he had other things to do. He hoped that Harve would be able to take over the chore.  He hoped Bags would be able to understand part of what he had laid out, as bizarre as it sounded.  He knew, that if it all went as he had seen it, the conflict would be short, and quite possibly non-existent. 

He knew that his appearance there, if he had showed his face, he would be killed outright, and that would only make matters worse.  It would certainly put a kink in his lifestyle.

Away from the gate, he ran through town, stopping briefly at every shop, building, house, and farm.  He felt a bit like a thief, but he wasn't stealing anything, he wasn't breaking into any home. He was just stopping by, looking at their water pump, and moving on.

He traveled swiftly, whistling a bit as he went.  It was a clear night, the moon shining through fluffily clouds, the air was crisp.  If he listened, he could hear the sounds of the performance and the response from the Bangalarians.  He smiled to himself.

He came to the large round building between the Keep and the Barracks. It was the Cistern, where he and Grizelda had visited the day before.  There was a door, about fifteen feet above ground, and he climbed the stairs up to it.

From above, the Cistern was a large round building, about thirty feet in diameter, twenty feet tall, and made entirely of stone.  It was built years ago, as the water table started to drop, to hold the supply for the entire kingdom.  At its peak, completely full, Pockets calculated it might have held close to one thousand thirty four gallons.  That was a lot of water. 

The top of the Cistern was covered completely with a tarp, stretched from rim to rim, and held down with strong rope.  All day, before the performance, Pockets had been inside with Grizelda helping him, reinforce the rope with some of the red cord he had taken from Bangala.

"Okay." Grizelda asked.  "How much of this cord did you take?  I know there's a big ball for the show, and here we are with almost as much of the same stuff.  This is a lot of cord, Pockets."

Pockets nodded and said, quite innocently, "When this is all done, I'll explain how a quantum singularity works, Griz.  Let's just say that when I found a piece, I placed it in a pocket.  It’s a very special pocket that I've rarely used before." 

"From there, the singularity did a bit of magic and the cord stretched incredibly long and thin.  While there, it picked up bits and pieces of itself from other places and grew and grew.  I knew this would happen because I once put an apple in that pocket and what came out was pie are squared times twelve to the ratio...."

Grizelda stopped him by holding her hand up.  "Enough.  Just say magic and let's get on with this."

Pockets smiled, because it was easier to dazzle than to explain. "Okay Griz.   What ever you say.  It got longer because I have a magic pocket."

"Good."  It only took a few hours to thread the cord through the existing eyelets of the tarp, and secure them to the existing bolts on the outside of building. Grizelda fed the line to Pockets, while he scampered around the rim of the building. When they were done, Grizelda dusted off her hands as Pockets climbed down.  "Now, if you don't have any need of me, I'll be off to the Social Club.  I want to make sure the girls are behaving. Besides, I get a front row seat." 

"Okay Griz.  You make sure to rest tonight, all right?  I expect you'll be pretty busy tomorrow.  We're going to have guests."

Grizelda stood with hands on hips and looked the little man in the eye.  "When are you going to tell me what this is all about, Pockets?  What do you have up your sleeve?"

Pockets though for a moment and decided to tell her.  "Griz, this soil, this sand we are on is very ... um... permeable.  The water table is just between three and four feet down.  What I'm going to do is an experiment.  You know how I've talked bout bringing the forest back?"

Grizelda nodded.

"Well, it's not going to be done without water.  Even though this place has been in a drought situation for decades, the water table has been stable because the bedrock keeps it there.  Does any of this make sense?"

"Yes, Pockets." Grizelda sighed.  "I'm a country girl, but I'm not stupid.  I've also been around you long enough to learn a few things." 

"This is my question." she continued.  "This cistern is not quite empty, but pert near plumb.  We spent part of this afternoon tossing horse apples into it, hundreds, I imagine.  Where they came from, I can only imagine."  She looked with one eye squinty at Pockets, then said "Never mind.  I don't want to know.  In fact, it's probably the same place your cord came from. A magic pocket."

Pockets just smiled.

"The rest of the time," she went on, "we spent reinforcing the top of this thing.  Care to explain why?"

Pockets asked "You know the old saw, 'What goes up must come down?"

Griz nodded.

"Did ya ever hear the one that said 'If it can't go up, it has to go down'?

Griz shook her head.

"Well, it exists, believe me.  And I'm depending on it."  Pockets looked the building over.  "You go on, Griz.  I can tell you're tired."

Grizelda kissed the top of his balding sweaty head and started back towards the Social Club.

Pockets stopped her with "Do me a favor, Griz?"

Grizelda stopped and waited.

"You know that tea you made for me that one time I was pretty beat up?  The one where you had to stay and brew it and watch it almost all night?"

Grizelda looked thoughtful and then said "The EverLight?  That tea?"

Pockets said "I guess.  It's the one that seemed to heal me double quick.  Anyway, could you whip up a batch?  We're gonna need it tonight, I think."

Grizelda gazed at Pockets, and asked, "One of your feelings?"

Pockets nodded, said "Yeah." in a quiet voice.  "Not for me, though."

Grizelda nodded, said "I guess it'll be all right if I miss tonight's performance.  I'll be watching it during rehearsal anyway."

"Thanks, Griz." Pockets said.  Then he ran and gave her a hug.  "You'll always be my only love, you know."

"Yeah, yeah." she said.  "At least until you find the one."  She waved and headed down the trail to the road that would take her away.

Pockets watched her for a while as she disappeared into the distance.  "Yeah... right.  The 'one'."  He sighed.  "Never happen."

That had been hours ago, and now he stood at the door of the cistern, opened it and stepped inside.  It was pitch black, but that was all right.  He knew the way.  The felt his way down the stair case until his feet squished into the few inches of water that remained on the bottom.

He got his bearings and wandered to the middle of the large circular building.  When his toes touched something small that thunked into the darkness, he stopped.  He reached into one of his pockets and pulled his fire starter out.  He struck it a couple of times and a tiny flame emerged.

There, in front of him was the pile of horse apples.  It had grown taller than he was.  He scrutinized it and nodded.  "Should be enough."  He looked up, where high above him the tarp snapped and thrummed in the wind.  "Might be more than enough."  He pulled a length of red cord from his pocket, stuck one end of it into the pile and wandered out the way he had come.

He stood just outside the door of the Cistern and gauged the wind.  He listened back towards where he knew the gate was and heard nothing.  "Hmm," he though.  "I reckon the performance is over.  I hope that Bags and whatsis name is having their little palaver."

He sat down on the steps and yawned, mightily.  "Lords, I'm tired!" he cried.  Nobody answered him but the night birds.  He looked up at the sky and let himself relax just a bit.  His body answered by showing its exhaustion, pulling him into the steps and he found himself nodding awake, chin on chest. 

"Whoa!  No time for this!" he said, standing and rubbing his arms.  He jumped up and down to get the circulation going. "Come on, Bags!  Give me a sign".  How long he had dozed, he didn't know.  Perhaps it had been just a few minutes, perhaps as much as an hour or two. 

He squinted toward the gates, looking for the light shining from the torches.  It was fairly dim, so he had to assume that the party was over, and if everything went according to what he had seen, everyone should be either inside the wall, or very close to it.

He licked one finger, raised it and tested the wind.  He nodded to himself, reached into his pocket again for his fire starter, and sparked a flame. He said "Welp, here goes nothing."

The one end of the red cord he had been holding sputtered and flamed as he dropped it.  The burning cord started up the steps and Pockets ran for his life away from the Cistern.

"You know…" he said, "If I miscalculated..." the rest of his words disappeared in a blast that shook the ground.  It had to, as the explosion inside of the Cistern tried to go up, but was held back by the tarp, which in turn was held by the super strong cord.  Since it couldn't go up, it had to go down, and pushed its force into the ground, causing it to rumble. 

The Cistern, strong as it was, was not as strong as the blast, and shook and ground and shot dust around from its various cracks and chinks.  The door, not hardly as strong as stone, shot from its hinges and flew across the field, catching up with Pockets and striking him in the back. 

He thought, just before he lost consciousness, "Yep.  Just a little miscalculation".  And of course, as always happens when one loses consciousness, all went dark.

Bags smiled at Quanitico, and said "Tell you what.  Let's just release them.  If any trouble starts, I'll sick these guys on 'em." He jerked a thumb towards the Gray Brigade.

Quantico gauged the aging group of men, and asked, "How many have been in war?"

Briggs smiled back and said "All of them.  And more than one, for the most part."

"Even him?"  Quantico indicated Fred, who sat smiling and picking his nose.

Briggs looked at Fred, turned back and replied, "Well, Fred there... he was some sort of an assassin.  It made him a bit... off."

Quantico nodded.  "I've seen that before.  Still deadly, though, I'd imagine?"  Briggs just smiled and said, "I'd not want to test him".

The Bangalarian turned to Bags and asked, "May I speak to my men?"

"Sure."

The leader of the Bangalarian army walked up to the area in front of the gates that served as the stage.  He raised his hands and said a number of phrases to his men.  Bags turned to Harve and said, "Translation?"

"Basically he's saying that you and he are going to fight.  He saying something about if any one of them cause any trouble, then they would have to personally answer to him, and it wouldn't be ... umm. Putty? Puppy?  And I think he said something about a monkey, but I'm not sure what."

"Good enough. Come on."  Bags led the way up to the stage.  He looked at Briggs and said, "Release them, Briggs.  I expect they're trustworthy, but still, post your men every so often and just keep an eye out, okay?" 

Briggs nodded and directed his men on what to do to cut the cord.  The Brigaders moved among the captives, slowly cutting the bonds, as they were directed.  Briggs only had to remind a few of them not to hurt any of the Bangalarians. 

Bags joined the Bangalarian leader on the sand in front of the gate, and said "Okay.  How do you propose that this be done? Just run at each other and start punchin'?"

Quantico chuckled and said "Oh my, no.  That would be a bit barbaric, don't you suppose?"  He stepped closer, held out his hand and continued, "You are a good man, King Bags. I can tell it because you are here with your men, and you trust them.  I have never been with a King that would do such a thing, but it has always been something I thought should happen.  It is my honor to meet you."

Bags held out his hand and said "Uh huh.  Okay.  Well, this is rather unexpected."  The two men shook hands.  "You do know, then, that there is no way I was going to let this go to the death?"

"I suspected as much."  He winked and said, "But we must make it look good, yes?  For them, yes?"  Quantico tilted his head towards his men.

Bags said "Sure. I think my folk would like it to be more than a friendly slap and tickle session, too."  He thought for a second.

Let's go one step further." He said "Since we were simply, and I want to stress that, simply going to try to open up trade with you folks, let's see if we can show you some of what we have to offer.  Who knows?  This may be the best thing that can happen, maybe for both of us."

"Perhaps, my friend, perhaps.  So, how would you propose we start?"

"Let me handle it."  He walked through the gates and called for the heads of the Guilds.  "Okay, this is what I want.  I want meat pies, I want beverages, I want whatever you can get together in... Oh, I don't know, an hour.  Get your shops open and cookin'.  Damien, get Swineheart’s open." He pointed to the head of the Gamer's guild, "You... umm... Bertrand... Get the Midway up and going.  We have guests and I want to show them the best we have to offer."

Damien stepped forward and said out of the corner of his mouth, "Bags... this is gonna cost a butt load of money.  Who’s footin' the bill?"

Bags said "Good point."  Louder he said, "Okay, I want you to keep track of what you sold, and present me the bill tomorrow.  You'll be paid from the treasury."

One of the merchants said "Easy to say, Yer Majesty.  I heard we were bankrupt, or just about."

"Yeah, I heard that too." said Damien. 

Bags nodded and said "Yeah, okay.  And here's the deal.  When we kicked the old Beegle, did we mention we found out where all the gold went?  So we're not bankrupt, folks. If anything, we're too rich, so you might as well share in it." 

A lot of murmuring went on through the crowd, and then one merchant said "Well... 'ow do we knows you're telling the truth?  'ow are we supposed to trust yer?"

Bags nodded again and said "Fair enough.  You can't.  I wouldn't.  If I was you, I'd think I was the same type of snake that we just kicked out.  Then again, ask yourself.  How bad can it be?  Worst that happens is that we have a party, make some new friends, spend some money.  You lose what you'd be throwing out tomorrow."  He looked at Damien. "Well... not you, maybe."

"What's the best that can happen? You get paid by me, from the OLD treasury, full of gold. You also get the word of how good your stuff is, spread across two kingdoms.  Not just here, where everyone knows what you got, but to people that have never eaten or drunk or played your games.  Fresh meat, people!  How much clearer can I make it."

Once again, a lot of discussion occurred.  "All right.  But what about the buggers that was tryin' to kill us?  That's them out there, ain't it?"

"Naw. Not any more. They just thought that was the plan.  The games been changed a bit.  Now they're just gonna stick around for a bit, watch a wrasslin' match between me and their leader, and go home.  I just figured we might show 'em a bit of hospitality before the show." 

Some doubtful eyes met his, and Bags continued.  "Okay. Let's make this really simple.  You don't want to open, you don't have to.  Those that do, do.  Keep tab on your costs.  Send me the bill." He shrugged.  "It's your choice.  But I'm about to open the gates and invite the barbarians in."

He turned away from them, then turned back and said, "Oh yeah. They don't speak the language, so don't expect them to.  You might try to learn a bit of theirs, and if they show interest, they might learn a bit of ours."

He started back out the gates.  "One more thing," he said to the merchants, "if you try to gouge me, cheat the kingdom, I'll know.  Don't concern yourself how I'll know.  But I will."  Glaring at them, he turned away and smiled to himself.  "What they don't know won't hurt 'em" he muttered to himself.

The throng of merchants dispersed quickly, heading toward their separate shops.  Damien wandered back toward his castle, hands in his pockets, whistling.

Bags walked over to Quantico and said, "Okay, it's arranged.  You guys are our guests for the night.  We can do this tomorrow.  I'm beat.  How's that sound?"

"Agreed." Quantico nodded.  He turned toward his men and barked a few short phrases.  "I told them that we are your guests, and they are not to kill anyone."

Bags smiled wryly and said "Damn decent of you."

"If truth be told, King Bags, I'm rather tired myself.  Riding around on a horse for hours, then camping out in the desert tends to ... drain one.  Especially if it's done all in one day."

"I can certainly understand that.  I've got calluses on my butt that have yet to wear off."

"Indeed." said Quantico.

Bags put clapped a hand on Quantico's shoulder and said, "Have you ever had a beer?"

"A what?" came the response.

Later in the pub, Quantico said when introduced to Grizelda, "So this is your wife?  She's very lovely!"  He raised his third beer and smiled wearily.

"How did the show go, and what the hell are all these people doing in town?"

"That, Griz is kind of a long story." Bags said.

"Griz," said Quantico, "you have," he yawned loudly, "an incredible husband."

"Yeah, I know."  She looked at Bags and said "Capitani was just about done in. If it wasn't for Pockets asking me to brew the EverLight, I think she would be in a world of hurt tomorrow."  She looked around.  "Where's Pockets, anyway?"

"I don't know," Bags said. "He said he had something to do..." and then they heard the rumble.  "What the hell?" Bags asked. 

The rumble was getting louder when Briggs burst into the pub.  "Bags!  You gotta come see this!"  He ran back out. 

"Moves pretty good for an old man." said Quantico, who put his head down on his arms and proceeded to snore.

Bags and Grizelda followed Briggs out the door and down the rambling roads to the gates.

"It started just a few minutes ago." Briggs said breathlessly. "There was that rumble, and that was disturbing enough.  Then Fred mentioned something about water out of the ground. I looked out the gate where he was pointing, and sure enough, the ground where the horses had run was wet.  Now look!"  He pointed.

The sand, about twenty five feet away from the gates, was indeed wet.  In fact, there was water gushing out of the ground, bubbling like a brook. It was caught and held by the tracks that the horses had run as they circled the walls, but it wouldn't be held long.  Some places the water was pulsing in fountains two to three foot high.

"Now," said Bags, "That's something you don't see every day."

Grizelda, mouth agape, stood and stared.  A long silence floated across the crowd that had gathered to see.

"What can't go up, must go down." She said.

"What?" Bags asked.

"Just something that Pockets said, before he sent me to brew the tea.  What can't go up, must go down."  She turned away from the gushing water, looking back towards the kingdom.  "Oh, I do hope he was careful."

"Grizelda," Bags said cautiously, "this IS Pockets, you're talking about."

"I know!" she said, as she took off running.

"I have simply got to learn to duck."  Pockets said as he shook himself around, checked to make sure that there were no broken bones, no contusions, no visible or invisible damage.  He appeared to be all right, other than a bit of a headache and a bump where the door had hit him.

He looked back at the Cistern, which looked pretty much as it had, except the missing door, and a glow coming from inside the building.  The top, the skinned top, had blossomed up like a mushroom, stretching the cords that held it to their limit.

"Looks like a kid's balloon." Pockets observed.  "Must have been all that trapped hot air, pushing upwards."  He paused, rubbed the bump on the back of his head, and filed the information away. "Hmmmm."

"I'm surprised you survived." came a woman's voice from the darkness.

Pockets whirled around, looking for the voice.  The dark hid the owner very well.  "Well, to be honest, I'm surprised I've survived a whole buncha times." he called out.

"Ah." said the voice.  A figure stood up, slowly, from where it was hidden by one of the trees.  "I was just sitting here, enjoying the moonlight, when I saw you jump as hell wouldn't have you, out the door, which followed you close behind.  I have to tell you, I nearly peed my pants when that thing exploded."

Pockets walked over to the figure, and nodded.  "Reckon it would have been pretty interesting to see.  What did it look like to you?"

"Didn't look like much, really.", said the woman, who's figure coalesced into a big boned woman with dark hair.  "Had a brief flash, followed by a boom.  Then the door flew off and the top puffed up.  The ground shook for a bit, which made me wonder what the hell was going on."  She dusted her hands off on her trousers, walked out of the shadows and produced a hand to shake.  "Name's Journiey, by the way."  And she smiled.

"Pockets, ma'am."  and he shook her hand.

Journiey launched into a gale of laughter that came from deep in her large bosom.  A few birds, startled by the sound, flew from the trees, complaining.

"I haven't been called ma'am for so long, you'll have to excuse my surprise."  she said, still laughing that ran down to a chuckle like the grumbling of a happy river over rocks. "You have a pretty strong grip, Mr. Pockets.  What is it you do?  Besides making cisterns blow apart, that is."

Her face was oval, with almond shaped eyes the color of a clear sky.  Her teeth flashed behind a full bottom lip, and the upper lip was shy and delicate.  Her nose was smallish, but well formed and gave a fine cheerful look to a face that read friend.

"It's just Pockets, Journiey.  No Mister in front of it.  As for what I do..." he hesitated, and then spoke uncertainly.  "I don't really know.  I do a lot of thinking, I do a lot of wandering, but it appears," he looked back at the still smoking cistern, "what I mostly do is cause trouble."

"Well." Journiey said.  "Perhaps you're just looking for what you are, and maybe when you find that you'll find what it is you should be doing.

"That's far too deep for me right now."  Pockets walked over to the tree that Journiey had vacated and sat down.  "I think right now, I'm looking for a place to sit.  That bump on the head made me just a bit woozy."

Journiey sat down next to him.  "You don't mind if I sit too, do you?  I was, like I said, just taking in the night."  She looked across the stars and said in a wondering voice. "Did you ever wonder what else might be out there?  Besides all those points of light?"

Pockets rubbed his head a bit, and said "Planets, stars, galaxies. Lots and lots of empty space."

Journiey looked at him and said "Not much of a dreamer, are you?"  She shook her head and said "No.  I mean, the dreams, the wishes.  I mean all that stuff that you can't see."  She shifted her position a bit, to get more comfortable.  "Did you ever stop to wonder if, somewhere out there, there may be someone sitting under a tree, looking up and wondering just what I'm wondering?"

The buzz in Pockets head was getting worse and the throbbing of the headache was becoming very annoying to him. In a slightly grumpy voice, with a bit of a slur, he said, "The odds are that, in an infinite universe, assuming that the universe IS infinite, there is someone out there, doing exactly what you describe."

Journiey looked at Pockets briefly, then lifted his chin and looked in his eyes.  He resisted, pulling his head away.  "Don't do that.  I want to check your eyes.  You may be more hurt than you know."  Pulling his face back so she could examine it, she looked once again.  "Yep.  You've got a pretty good bump, little man. Probably rattled your brains. The one thing you do not need to do right now is sleep. Not till I get you fixed up, anyway.  Come on."  She stood up and pulled on his arm.

Pockets stood up, weakly, his knees buckling under him.  "Whoops!" Journiey said, and place her arm across his back and under his arms.  "Looks like you're going to need a bit of help."

"Where are we going?" Pockets protested, his voice becoming harder to understand.

"I'm taking you home with me.  I've got something there that should help you right up."

"No, no, no..." he said.  "I've got to wait for my friends..."

"Your friends are probably still at that party or whatever it is." she said. Pockets sagged in her grip and let her lead him, or carry him away from the cistern.

They went through a section of wood that Pockets, even in his dazed state, knew was not recognizable.  "Wher' we goin'."  he mumbled.

"I told you.  It's my place."  Journiey said.

His legs would no longer hold him up, so Journiey hoisted him across her shoulders and carried him.

Through the woods they went, deeper and deeper into the forest.  The trees here were old.  Older than anything that had grown around the kingdom.  She crossed over a small stream, holding Pockets gingerly, but with ease as she crossed the slow running brook.

As the two moved deeper in to the wood, Journiey started to hum, gently, a tune that Pockets had heard years ago, but had forgotten.  It was a tune he remembered from the orphanage. 

There had been a performance there of gypsies. The gypsies claimed to be able to call up the woodland folks, and they said it could be done with song.  The children demanded to hear it, so the musician in the gypsies played a tune on the lower notes of his fiddle.

The music, as it was explained, reached into the green of the planet, talked to the animals and the plants in a language they could understand.  It was the language from before men, when all the things there were could speak to each other.  It was the language of young planet and the woodland folks had taught it to a chosen few.  These gypsies claimed to be one of the select few it was taught to.

Journiey came to a very large tree, and stood before it.  She gently placed Pockets on the ground, placed her hands on either side of the trunk, and sang a wordless tune that, to Pockets' dazzled brain, sounded green and brown and blue.

The tune went on for a few minutes, minutes where Pockets could feel the darkness in his mind sidling around, and trying to catch him and drag him under.

The tune stopped, and Pockets felt Journiey pick him up again.  To his mind, it seemed that the two of them passed between two wooden pillars, covered in bark.  They went down a steep set of stairs to a large round room. 

It was brightly lit by bouncing fireflies caught in isinglass bottles.  Hundreds were there, but not caught.  They could come and go as they please, moving freely about the room.  The walls were wood, but not planks, not timber.  It was wood without any seams, as if they were carved from inside a single trunk.

"Where are we?" Pockets said, weakly.

"This is my place, Pockets."  Journiey said, as she lay him down on a soft, green bed that smelled of fresh grass after a thunderstorm.  "This is where I live." 

She moved away for a bit, then came back with a mug expertly thrown from mud.  It was full of a green liquid she place between his lips. "Drink this.  Your brain has been sloshed around, so it's real close to getting lost.  This will help it find it's way back."

It was sweet, but not too sweet, and had a very woody taste in it.  It smelled of vanilla and... something else.

"What's it?" Pockets said.

"Medicine." Journiey said.  "Drink it all, then you can sleep."  She held the cup up to his lips again.

Pockets drank all that was in the cup.  When Journiey was satisfied, she lifted his eyelids and checked each eye once again.  She nodded, satisfied.

"All right, Not Mister Pockets.  I'm going to let you sleep some and then we'll see about getting you back to your friends."

Pockets nodded, smiled, turned on his side and snuggled deeper into the bed.  Soon, he was breathing softly, regularly.  A small line of drool escaped his lips.

Journiey looked at him, smiled to herself and said, "Yep.  You're a wonder Pockets.  You just have to find yourself."

Bags, Grizelda and Harve, as well as the girls from the Social Club searched the area around the Cistern for more than an hour without finding any sign of Pockets.

Bags examined the damage to the Cistern, and said "What the hell did he do here?  Is this how he created that moat out there?"  He pointed in the direction outside the Gates, where water was still bubbling up from the ground in places.

Grizelda shrugged.  "Bags, all I know is that we tossed a whole bunch of those horse apples into it.  I think we used all that were left.  Made a really big pile, too.  Then we spent another hour or so tying that red rope of his over and around the cover.  I didn't ask him why, because sometimes his answers are worse than the curiosity, you know?"

Bags nodded. "Yeah, I know." He looked at where the door was blown off.  "It just ripped the hinges right off!.  I'm surprised the whole thing is still standing."  He could see the inside of the Cistern, still smoldering.  The red cord hung limp around the building, and dangled from the tie-offs.  "How much of this cord does he have?"

Grizelda started to explain what Pockets had said to her, but Bags stopped her. "Never mind."  He turned to Harve.  "Gather up this cord up, Harve.  Apparently it's strong as steel, and burns like nobody’s business.  That might be a valuable thing to have."  Harve nodded and started to coil up the cord.

"Now.. where is he?"  Bags said, with his hands on his hips.  "He had to do this in the middle of the night, didn't he?"

"Even so," said Grizelda.  "We should find some sign of him."

"Mebbe he got blowed up." Sassy said, barely visible in her leather.  Her eyes seemed to glow when they caught the light of the moon.

Grizelda looked at Bags, who looked at her in turn.  A wordless conversation took place, faster than the speed of light.  As a unit, they turned to Sassy and said "Naaaaw. Never happen."

Sassy shrugged her skinny shoulders and said "All I know is that there ain't no sign of him here.  Not thread nor shoe."  She turned away to walk around the Cistern again, looking for signs.

Grizelda crossed over to Bags, took his arm gently and said "You don't think he..."

Bags shook his head.  "No way.  Pockets would maybe not be as safe as he could be, but he wouldn't have gotten himself blown up.  He would have run out here and turned around..." He walked to where he could see the Cistern and its gaping doorway. "... so that he could see what happened next."  He took one step back and almost tripped over the door, lying on the ground.

"Of course, being Pockets, he might have made it this far, and before he could turn around, the door might have just hit him in the back of the head, knocking him unconscious."  He looked over at Grizelda.  "Willin' to make a bet he got whacked on the noggin and is somewhere out there wanderin' around?"

"Sassy!" Grizelda yelled out.  When the woman rounded the corner, Grizelda called her over and said "Look around for footprints or something that might show what direction he went."

Sassy looked suspiciously at Grizelda.  "How did you know I could see in the dark?"

"One, most folks can see in the dark.  Two, your eyes shine in the moonlight, telling me that you see better than some.  Right?"  Grizelda replied.

Sassy nodded.  "Okay.  That works."  She leaned down to the ground near the door, sniffing.  "Hmm... there were two people here.  One may be your Pockets.  But another smells like..." She sniffed heavily.  "...Like tea leaves?  Tree roots?  Smells like something from the wood, that's for sure."  She wandered around the area briefly and pointed towards an area between the Keep and the Cistern.  "They went that way."

She moved in the direction her nose pointed her.  Bags and Grizelda followed her.  Bags directed Harve and the other girls to stay behind. "If he shows up, he may be disoriented.  It might take all of you to get him to town."

The three tracked the path indicated by Sassy until she stopped.  "Here his feet left the ground.  It looks like he was picked up, because the tracks get deeper here." She pointed to a spot neither Bags or Grizelda could see. 

The two nodded, and Grizelda said "Then he either knew the person, or ..." she shrugged.  She looked at Bags and said "He's been known to follow women into a dark alley."

"You think it was a woman?"  Bags asked.

Grizelda shrugged.  "I don't know what to think.  Pockets isn't a little guy, so if it was a woman, it would have had to be a really big woman. I don't see him following a man, though."

Bags nodded.  "Someday remind me to tell you about the time that Pockets was seeing a woman that was six foot tall."

"Pockets?  A six foot tall woman?" Grizelda exclaimed.

"Yeah.  She was something.  Six foot tall, statuesque, very, very pretty.  They made a heck of a team, what with Pockets being as tall as he is.  They would laugh and kid around and be like two little kids."

"Did they ever... you know?" Grizelda asked.

"Why Grizelda! I'm shocked that you would even ask a thing like that!"  Bags said, grinning.

She hit him gently on his upper arm. "Oh hell, Bags.  As long as I've known you two, I hardly know of any successful relationship Pockets has ever had."

Bags, still smiling, said "It's because he's just... Pockets.  He doesn't really talk much about his relationships, because he tends to not have any.  After this last Chibi thing, I expect him to not have anything to do with another woman for a very long time."

"And?" Grizelda asked after a long pause.

"And what?"

"Did he and the six foot woman... you know?"  Grizelda's impatience showed in her smile.

"I'll put it to you exactly as he put it to me.  I asked him once, just once, if he had sex with her, because it seemed like such an odd fit.  He just smiled and said 'It would be a poor lumberjack that can't climb a tree that's lying down'.  I just let it go after that."

Grizelda and Bags chuckled together, interrupted when Sassy stood up and announced.  "They just disappear here."

"What do you mean, disappeared?" Grizelda asked, concerned.

"I mean," said Sassy, standing up, "that the footprints and the scent just disappear from right here."

"They can't just disappear." Grizelda said.  "They have to have gone somewhere"

"Well, be that as it may, Missus Grizelda," said Sassy, "they's no where to be found, and there ain't no way to track 'em from here."

"You mean there're no tracks?  No nothing?" asked Bags.

"Nosir.  Not a jot ner a twiddle." Sassy replied.

"Damn.  Where could he have gone?"  Bags said, scanning the empty field beyond.

Pockets was snug, sleeping on a grass green bed, being watched over by Journiey.  He muttered a bit in his sleep, turned a bit this way and that, which brought the woman over to him to stroke his brow and say, "Poor little man.  You've lived the adventurous life, haven't you?" 

She smiled gently, stood up, crossed over to her stove and made more tea.  She brought a cup for herself and sat down next to him, on her bed.  "We shall meet again, Not Mister Pockets.  But now, I suppose I shall have to take you back to the other world, where your friends are."  She stroked his face and smiled again.

Gently she picked him up, as one would cradle a babe, and walked up the stairs with him. "Not Mister Pockets, this will be a bit odd to you, but when you need to journey, Journiey will be there for you.  All you have to do is hold out your hand."  She opened a hole in a wall and stepped through. 

Gently she placed him down on a bench, brushed her hand against his and said "You take care, Pockets. I'll look in every so often."

She started to leave, but then turned back.  She bent down and kissed him full on the lips. Pockets smiled in his sleep. "That was a good thing you did with the water, Pockets.  Just wanted you to know." She turned and walked straight through the wall as if it wasn't there.

Bags and Grizelda made their way back through town.  They had given up their search for Pockets as a lost cause.

"We'll start again in the morning.  There can't be very far he could have gone, Griz." Bags was saying.

"Calm, calm, Bags.  You know Pockets.  Even with a bump on the head, he won't leave us or go very far."

"He went to Bangala, didn't he?"  Bags demanded.

"Well, yes, he did.  But it wasn't like he was leaving us.  He just went... searching."  Grizelda said.

"For what?" Bags continued.  "Everything he needs is right here, and we've been his family for damn near 20 years."

"I know, honey.  But Pockets is getting older.  He is on that sort of quest when he's looking for something to make his life complete."

Bags got a face like he was seriously thinking about what the taste of the lemon he ate was.  "Hmph.  I guess it happens to some guys."  He looked lovingly at Grizelda. "but not me. I think I've found what I was looking for."

Grizelda poked him in the ribs "You think?  You don't know?"  She poked him again.

"Ow!" he said, "Okay, okay. I know I've found what I was looking for! Sheesh.  That hurt!"

The two of them played with each other in that adult way that makes no sense to anyone who can't do it, being children and adults at the same time.  They walked into town still playing, laughing like loons.  The concern they had for Pockets was evident if you asked them, but they had grown used to him and were not worried.  Concerned yes, but worried, no.  Worry to them would not fix anything. It was something you did when you felt like you had to wring your hands, and these two were not the hand-wringing type.

Bags pushed open the door to Swineheart's and announced "All of you that want to be on the King's good side tomorrow will buy him an ale tonight!"  He sidled over to a bench and sat down, Grizelda sliding next to him.

Damien came over, bringing two large mugs that he sat down in front of the two lovers.  Grizelda looked up and said "Damien, Pockets is gone missing."

Damien raised one eyebrow and said "Again?"

Grizelda smiled weakly and nodded.  "Again", she confirmed.

"Well," said Damien.  "He was just on a bench in the back a few seconds ago."

"What?" came the reply, from two pair of lips.  "He was here?"

"Probably still is. Let's go look."  Damien headed back toward the back of the bar, Bags and Grizelda in tow.

Pockets was sleeping on one of the benches in the back, just as Damien had said.  He was curled up in a little ball, tucked in to the booth so unless you were looking for him, you wouldn't see him.

Grizelda sidled in next to him, and Bags took the other side.  Gently Grizelda poked him and whispered "Pockets?"

Pockets stirred a bit and said "mmmMMMmmm  Just let me sleep a bit more, Journiey."

Grizelda looked over at Bags, Bags looked at Grizelda.  "Journey?" they said.

Damien said "Huh.  Journiey?  Been a long time since anyone's heard that name here."

"Why's that?" Grizelda asked.

"Cuz it just has.  People would say they saw her, but nobody I knew would admit to it, unless they were a bit in their cups, if you know what I mean."

"Who is she.. was she?" Bags asked.

Damien pointed to a picture of a large woman, standing near water but sheltered by trees.  She had an oval face, almond shaped eyes of blue.  She was holding a staff in one hand, and the other hand lay on the head of a deer.

"She was the local forest spirit.  But hell, we ain't had a forest for ... well… ever."

Bags and Grizelda just looked at Pockets.
 
They placed Pockets upstairs, on one of the tables.  He seemed unharmed, except for a large bump on the back of his head.  Bags decided that it was the wisest move, since they did not want him to be seen by the Bangalarians.

Bags and Grizelda let Damien know that he was to take care of Pockets, make sure he was comfortable, and not to let him out from the upstairs of the pub.  They explained about the sentence of death that hung over his head from the Bangalarian Caliph.

"I like the guy.  He cracks me up."  Damien said.  "No way would I want to be responsible for his death, so yeah, I'll do my best to keep him up there.  He's an adult, though, and if he wants to leave, I'm not gonna stop him."

"Fair enough." said Bags.  "After tomorrow morning, I think it'll be safe.  From the look of that bump, he's gonna sleep past noon."

Grizelda looked at Bags and said, "You're going to go fight him, aren't you?"

Bags nodded and said "It's called wrassling, Griz. And yes, I'm going to go. I said I would, and I don't go back on my word."  He looked at her with a serious expression.  "It was the right thing to do, dear.  I don't know what the outcome of this would have been.  It could have had a lot of bloodshed.  It didn't." 

He took off his bag and handed it to her.  "Hold this for me?" 

She took it and nodded.  "Don't expect me to patch you up after it's all said and done!"

"Never woulda thunk it."  He looked at her and smiled.  "Come cheer me from the sidelines?"

"Never woulda missed it."  She kissed him, and he kissed her.  They linked arm in arm and, with Bags leading the way, walked down the stairs, leaving Damien with Pockets.

"You sure are a lucky son of a bitch, Pockets."  He said.  He didn't elaborate, but merely went down the stairs to open the pub and get the world running again.

The sun shone down upon the ground just outside of the gate. The sky was clear and crisp, and a carnival atmosphere pervaded the grounds. Merchants had their wares brought out to where the excitement was, and all manner of trinkets and foodstuffs could be found.  The entertainment for the day was the impending bout between Bags and Quantico and the rather surprising ring of water that surrounded the entire kingdom.

The moat had quit it's burbling during the night and had calmed down to a soft surface, blown gently by the breeze from the desert.  Already, green shoots could be seen starting on either bank of the ring. Some of the children had wandered into the water, under the watchful eyes of their parents.  The water didn't appear very deep, possibly five feet deep at most, but it was an amazing sight to those that had never seen this much water.  The sun reflected off of it and glittered into the eyes of the watchers.

The wonder of the water had faded quickly.  There were a lot of questions about where it had come from, what that noise was, and why the ground had shook so much.  Nobody there had seen the Cistern yet, except Bags and Grizelda.

A ring had also appeared around the two combatants. Rather than water, though, it was people.  People of all ages, both from Tears and from Bangala, standing shoulder to shoulder, encircling the two warriors.

Bags and Quantico had stripped down to their togs, their bare chests shining in the sun. Bags' age showed a bit in the gray tufts of hair on his broad chest, while Quantico caused quite a number of feminine hearts to beat a bit faster, as his muscular chest was bare, brown and rippled.

"Well, I don't rightly know how I feel about fighting someone I drank with." said Bags. "But then again, I imagine I've probably fought with a lot of men that I have drunk with."

"I know what you mean, my friend." said Quantico.  "Before last night, slitting your throat would have been just part of my duties, if I had been told to by the Caliph."  He smiled.  "Now, it almost seems like it would be a shame to have to beat you in front of your people."

"Yep.  I don't want to have to beat you in front of your men, either."  Bags looked around at the throng, noticing that there were a large number of Bangalarians mixing with the Tearians. "How did your men like it here?  According to the few merchants I talked to, they seemed to like what we had to offer."

"After the headache left me this morning," said Quantico, "I talked to what few of my men I could find and they all said they were treated like princes.  Apparently the merchants they went to were all ready, expecting them.  Quite a number of them have samples of what you have to sell to take back to Bangala.  Perhaps you are achieving your trade agreement in spite of our rather difficult meeting." 

He looked at Bags with a sly grin.  "I couldn't find a few of my men.  I suspect they may have gone to visit your Grizelda's Social club.  I was tempted myself.  But a leader must keep up appearances." He sighed sadly.

Bags cleared his throat.  "Speaking of appearances, shall we?"

Quantico nodded, flexed his arms.  "I suppose we must."

The two men faced off and circled around each other, looking for an opening.  Suddenly Bags flashed his right fist out, connecting with Quantico's chin. Quantico staggered, but recovered and came back smiling.

"Ah." he said.  "Street rules."  He dropped low to the ground and whipped his leg around, knocking Bags off his feet.

Bags rolled over quickly, got Quantico's legs in a scissor and pulled him down.  From there it turned into a rolling, punching, athletic match, with yells and cheers from the sidelines.  The two men moved all around the circle, raising dust and cheers and boos as first one seemed to gain ground, then the other.

It lasted for several minutes, with each side cheering, though it was hard to tell who was being cheered at any one time.  It could have been either side, or it could have been both.  There was a bit of good natured wagering going on, between people that did not speak the same language.

Grizelda, true to her word, stood on the sideline, holding the bag, cheering when she wasn't hiding her eyes.  When the dust settled, she hurried to where the two men were standing, dusting themselves off.

And laughing.  Loud, long, full-bellied laughter pealed from their mouths as they stood supporting each other.

"What the hell are you laughing at?" She demanded.  This caused the men to stop, look at her, look at each other and start all over again.  "Fine.  Bleed to death.  I'm going back to the pub."  She stalked away from the breathless and laughing men.

When the laughter had settled and the breathing had gotten back to normal, Bags looked at Quantico and asked, "Who won?"

"I think," Quantico said, a bit breathlessly, "that it would be a draw."  He smiled and said "Shall we go again?  Best two out of three?"

"No, no.  I think, in all honesty, that you might just get the best of me.  I'd rather not take the chance.  Maybe next year." came the reply.

Quantico rubbed his chin and said, "Hmmm.  That's not a bad idea." When Bags started to explain he was kidding, Quantico continued, "Hear me out.  What if once a year, we held a match, between your best and our best.  Not for some petty thing, such as a kingdom, but for the title OF the best.  Perhaps there could be a trophy for the winner."

Bags said, "Well, we can talk about it.  It's not a bad idea, but I think there's gonna have to be some rules we'll have to dicker out.  Maybe something will come of it, maybe not." He sounded doubtful.  He smacked his lips, rubbed a bruise growing on his chin.  "I think I need some anesthetic.  How bout you?"

"Lead on, King Bags.  The kingdom is still yours since nobody won."

"What about Pockets?" Bags stopped in his tracks.

"Who?" asked Quantico.

"Pockets! Pockets!  The guy you came here to kill!  Pockets!"

"Pockets?  Who is he?" Quantico expressed absolute puzzlement.

Bags, getting exasperated, waved his arms up and down, looking like a bruised long arm bird trying to take off.  "POCKETS!  The guy the Caliph sent you to kill!  Because he wanted to marry the handmaiden... er.. Whatshername!  Viver. No... Oh hell!  Look.. did you come here to kill someone or not?"

"Bags." Quantico said.  "We received word from our riders that your... Pockets... was using something that could kill without even having to see your enemies.  The Caliph said nothing about killing anyone, he sent us to find the secret to these devices you have.  For trade."

Bags said, in a low and quiet voice, "Let me understand something. You did not come here to kill someone named Pockets?"

Quantico shook his head.

"Did you even know about the Caliph's handmaiden?"

"We heard that there was a foreigner that had pledged his life to the Caliph for the hand of the handmaiden, yes.  We heard that he was on a trading expedition that got attacked by ... um... bandits.  Fortunately, our riders helped fight them off."

"Uh huh."  Bags said.  "And what happened to the foreigner?"

"Who cares?" was the reply as the two men started toward the Pub. "The Caliph would never let one of his handmaidens marry a person not born of royal blood.  Whatever he promised was just an empty promise.  It would never have happened."  Quantico clapped Bags on his shoulder.  "I did tell you that he was not a terribly honorable man, didn't I?"

"You might have mentioned it last night.  Maybe."  Bags was quiet for a while, until they turned up the alley that led to Swineheart's.  "What would have happened if we told you that we don't know the secret to those exploding things?"

Quantico shrugged.  "Nothing.  We would have taken our horses and gone home.  Doubtful any trade would have happened between our peoples and your kingdom would have been branded liars.  Other than that, nothing."  He looked at Bags' shocked expression.  "What?  You think we want to start a war?  Are you people crazy?"

"Maybe just one of us is." said Bags.

"No war, Bags.  But I do want to talk about that yearly meeting between our people.  I think that would be a good thing.  And I also want to find out how you brought water from the sand."  He pushed open the door to the pub.  "Now that.  That was a good trick."

"Yeah." said Bags.  "Let's go find the man who did that.  I gotta few words to say to him too."

"How was I to know?" Pockets protested. "Ow!"  He reached to the back of his head and gingerly touched his bump. "I got a hell of a headache, Bags."

"How bout I make it a bit worse?" Bags asked.  "You told us that these guys," he jerked his thumb at Quantico, "were here to kill us all, and especially you. Now, I find out these guys didn't even know your name!"  He crossed his arms and glared at Pockets.

"Bags, if you’re gonna yell at me, you're gonna have to do it a leetle bit quieter." Pockets said, not looking happy at all."  He looked at Quantico and asked "You guys didn't come here to kill, loot and pillage?"

Quantico raised his eyebrows and said, quite seriously "No.  We were sent to find the secret to those things you threw at the ... bandits that attacked you."

Pockets walked over to Quantico and looked up at the man. "You really don't know who I am?"

Quantico sniffed and raised his head a bit. "You're a smelly little man, and I recognize you from when you were in Bangala.  I remember you spoke to the Caliph, and ... Yes! You were the one that asked for the handmaiden.  I didn't recognize you without your orange harem pants!"

"The smell comes from being laid on top of a bar table, chum.  And those weren't harem pants! They were a fashion statement."

"Everyone was laughing at you."

"With me.  They were laughing WITH me."

"As you wish, little Pockets. They were laughing with you."  Quantico nodded solemnly, but winked at Bags.  "Did you not hear what the Caliph said when you asked for the handmaiden's hand?"

"Yeah," said Pockets. "He said only one of the royal family could wed a handmaiden.  That's why I pledged my service to him."  He scratched his chin.  "That didn't make me a member of the family, did it?"

"No.  No, it did not."  Quantico looked over at Bags and said, "I'm going to go find my men and see that they are staying out of trouble.  If I stay much longer I will have to send a rider back to Bangala to explain my absence."

Bags nodded and Quantico left. Halfway down the stairs, he could be heard quite clearly, laughing around the words "Harem pants".

"Well." said Pockets, sitting down.  "I do feel like an ass, indeed."

"And you should." Bags agreed.  "Well, what's done is done, and there's nothing to be done for it."

"Really though, Bags, if I hadn't have made the mistake, things wouldn't have gone as smoothly as they could have.  Imagine what would have occurred if those guys had ridden up to the gates, carrying their great big knives.  Why, it would have scared the stuffing out of that old geezer at the gate.  Who knows what would have happened once they reached the market place?"

"Whatever you say, Pockets.  Your screw up saved the day. Sure. Why not?"  Bags called down to Damien to bring up two mugs of foam. "I just gotta ask one question.  Why all the water?"

"I just wanted to see if I could do it." Pockets admitted.  "I had all those horse apples, and I really didn't want them around, Bags.  Really, really.  They are bad stuff."

"Okay, I believe you." Bags said.  "After seeing what they did to the Cistern, how could I not.  Those things are just pretty darn dangerous. I'm not so sure we need to rebuild it.  Maybe we should tear it down and make a park or something."

"That's an idea.  I think the Cistern is pretty well beat to hell.  It did hold back a very large horse apple explosion, though." He thought about it for a second, and then said. You know, we could run some pipes underground, heat 'em up, and turn the place into a bath-house."

Bags gave him a dubious look.

"You know! A place to go and steam your troubles away!  Don't you remember that one village just outside of the swamps, near the firelake?  Remember how the mucky-mucks thought those were just the best things?  To sit in a bunch of steam and relax?"

Bags gave him a more dubious look.

"It's just an idea, Bags.  Sheesh.  Of course, it would be a good place to have a park too.  You know.  A place where kids could go fly a kite, old men could play card games out in the open.  We could have some benches built.  OH! OH! And a bandstand!  You know how I love music."  He started to get excited until Bags gave him his patented "I just said that" look.

"You just said that, didn't you?" Pockets asked.

"Tell me more about these horse apples." Bags said.

"There's not a whole lot to tell, Bags. It's something I picked up while you and I were in the army, right before I went to apprentice for the Mad Wizard.  There was this little man from one of the Northern Plains who turned me onto the idea.  He was telling me about one time when his fertilizer shed blew up.  I asked him what he used for fertilizer, and do you know what he told me?"

"What?"

"Bat shit."  Pockets nodded like crazy.  "I kid you not!  He said he kept it next to his coal bin, and one day when his fireplace was shooting sparks, one of them landed on the thatch of his fertilizer shed, some caught fire, and it fell onto his stored, dried bat guano."

He took a drink and continued.  "The whole thing blew up!  He figured it was probably the dried guano, and tried over and over to get it to happen again.  He never did.  I figure he just didn't take the time to go over the events.  Coal bin, guano, thatch."

"Thatch?" asked Bags.

"Yeah.  The burning thatch released elemental sulphur; the coal contained not only sulphur, but carbon, and the guano, potassium nitrate. So I just played with the ingredients till I got it right."

Bags smiled and said, "I thought you said you put the ingredients in a place you can't even get to them?  Did I hear that right?"

Pockets smiled sheepishly and said "Aw, you know me better'n that, Bags.  I never forget anything.  I couldn't very well tell Harve that, now could I?  He's a kid.  He's got to know.  But if I tell him that I forgot it, he'll believe me.  He already thinks I'm strange."

Damien came in and placed the mugs between the two men.  "Pockets," he said, "you are not just strange.  You are friggin' strange."  He smiled hugely, and left.

"See?" Pockets said, beaming. "My legend grows!"  He gained a foam mustache from his drink.

"To legends!" said Bags.
"To legends!" echoed Pockets.

"Hey, you two!  Are you going to do that without me?" Grizelda came in, carrying her own mug. She sat down next to Bags, raised her own mug and said "To legends!  Each and every one of us!"

"Well, I for one, am glad I'm not a legend." Bags said.

"Oh, don't be too sure, my love." Grizelda said. "I was listening to some of the girls and they told me that you've become quite a bit of the legend among the Bangalarians."

Bags sprayed his brew and said "What? Why?"

Grizelda just laughed and explained. "Apparently none of the Bangalarian men would ever consider taking Quantico on man to man.  He's almost a god to them, and to have him beat... or even fought to a draw... well, honey, that makes you almost a god to them too!" She kissed him on the cheek and laughed some more at his obvious discomfort.

Bags' face seemed to collapse in on itself, his lips compressed, his brow furrowed.  This lasted for just long enough for him to say "To heck with it!  Let them think what they will. We've got each other, and as long as we know what we are, that's the important thing." 

He hoisted his glass again.  "To legends!"  The other two wasted no time joining him.

Somewhere between the laughter and the gentle kidding about Pockets' harem pants, Grizelda's description of how much the Bangalarian men truly enjoyed the Social Club; the question of the water came up.

"Oh, it's only temporary." Pockets said.  "It will soak back into the ground.  What my hope was, you see, is that it would work. That pushing the water back up from the water table would create the moat that you saw."

"What good would that do?"  Grizelda asked.

"Why Griz!  It would do all sorts of good!" Pockets said energetically.  "All we have to do is dig down just a bit and we can have all the water we need to bring the forest back."  He smiled, thought back to Journiey, and said "I've sort of promised a friend that I'd bring it back."

"A friend?" asked Bags.  "Not another woman?  Not another one, Pockets."

"Well, that I couldn't say." Pockets said.  "I only saw her for just a bit, and I'm not so sure I'll see her again.  At least not till the forest comes back."

"Pockets," said Bags, "you have the absolute worst luck with women that I've ever seen.  I remember that red-head that you spent a winter with.  She slept in the stable as I remember. I also remember that she had a very good reason."  He turned to Grizelda and made a very convincing whinny sound.

Pockets drained his mug and gave a very wet raspberry to Bags.  To Grizelda, he said worriedly, "How's Capitani?  I was concerned that her performance would drain her to the point of death."

"She's pretty bad off, it's no lie." said Grizelda. "But a cheerier soul you'd never want to meet.  I'd swear, if she was standing at Death's door, she'd put out her hand to shake, do a headstand, tell a few jokes and get Old Mister Bones laughing so hard, he'd lose a shinbone."

"Yeah." said Pockets.  "She's a wonder, that one."

"And," said Grizelda to Bags, "I think we're going to be gaining a few new citizens.  A few of the Bangalarians have decided to stick around.  Seems they like how this place is run.  Not all is well in Bangala, I think."  She paused to drink the rest of her ale.  "One of them is Quantico.  Looks like he has the hots for Billie.  And it looks like Billie has the hots for him."

"Well." said Bags.  "Somehow that doesn't surprise me."  He smiled between drinking, and realizing his mug was empty, called to Damien to bring more.  "You know, we may just have to move up here."  He looked around, said "Throw up a few walls, bring up a bed or two, and we got a new home."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"  Grizelda said.  "I don't think that would be the best environment for a baby, do you?"

"This is a fine place, Griz. I think a little one would be just what it needs." said Damien, as he produced three full mugs and removed three empty one.  "Besides, we already have one."  He winked at Pockets.

"Har, har, har." Pockets retorted. 

Damien shrugged and said "Just calls 'em like I sees 'em, Pockets."

"Hey!" said Pockets.  "That's not that bad an idea." To Damien, he said, "What would be the chance I move in up here? I need a place to stay, you know?"

Damien shook his head and said, "Nope. Sorry Pockets.  This is a pub, not a flop house. This room is for meetings and where you Gods hold your court."

Grizelda added, "Besides, you have a Blacksmiths shop now, remember?"

Pockets perked up at that and said "Oh yeah!  I just about forgot that."  He smiled and said "Never mind, Damien."

Damien shrugged, "No big deal to me.", turned and went back downstairs.

"Well..., what shall we do tomorrow, Bags?" Asked Grizelda.

Bag thought a bit, then he said, "I think tomorrow is a holiday. I for one, am going swimming."  He sniffed the air, turned to Pockets and said "I think you should too."

Bags had declared the next day to be a holiday. In doing so, nothing really changed.  Merchants still sold their goods to whom ever was buying, Bakers still rose before anyone else, and children continued to play as if the world was theirs to command.

The ring of water did recede just a bit, but not as much as Pockets had predicted.  It stabilized with a depth around three feet and was perfect for afternoon wading, splashing and the occasional bath.  Oddly, it did not affect the amount or flow of water that came out of the villager's pumps.

A side effect of the water was the green that had started to sprout on it's banks.  Shoots of grass were peeking shyly around to see if they had been noticed or if this was just a trick played on them.

"Eventually, the trees will come back."  Pockets said.

"How do you know?"  he was asked.

"They are lying dormant, just a bit below the surface.  Just wait and see, Griz.  It'll seem like magic."

The Tree in the center of the Mansion dropped seed pods from its limbs that day.  One of the games Capitani had the children do was to gather up the seed pods and at her starting command, run, run out into the desert, but not to far, dig a hole and run back as fast as they could.  There was no prize, it was just the game that mattered.

She was doing remarkably well, healing from her performance.  The Everlight tea that Grizelda brewed brought a shine back to her eyes and a rose bloom back to her cheeks.  She puttered around the garden, fussing over plants and clucking her tongue at the errant insect or slug that had decided to make whatever plant they were on their dinner.

Bren and Thom had gone to explore their new village.  Capitani had cautioned them not to be late, as she was preparing stew.  The two men, mouth watering, promised to be back as quickly as possible.  Thom wanted to see what sort of medical facilities were in the kingdom and Bren... well, he just wanted to see everything.  Capitani kissed both of them and then shooed them away for fun and adventure.

Bags and Grizelda spent the day lazily sitting at their little beach.  Bags had ordered that Damien provided refreshment, and so Damien had set up a small bar outside the gates.  Some of the long tables had been planted and quite a number of the chairs.  It wasn't a booming business, but every so often some of the village folk would wander out and wonder at the water and buy something to drink, to eat, just to sit and talk.  Many of them had never talked to their king or queen, and found the two to be just folks.  The people of Tears would come away feeling assured that Bags and Grizelda were something a bit different than they were used to, and in a good way.

Pockets twiddled away in his Blacksmith's shop, making diagrams and drawings.  He decided that the one thing that this place needed was a fridgerator.  It would keep things cooler and preserve their freshness.  He was devising a way to extrude copper pipe when he heard the voice.

"How come you don't have any books around, Mister Not Pockets?"

Pockets jumped up from where he was bent over the forge and hit his head on the flue.  This shook down years of accumulated soot.  The soot rained over the top of his head and produced a cloud that obscured his vision briefly.

"Well," he said, "it probably needed cleaning anyway."  When the soot cloud cleared, and he blinked his eyes free of the dust, he saw Journiey, standing at his door.  "Maybe I should install a bell at the door.  People keep sneaking up on me."

She laughed and entered. Journiey was wearing green, unsurprisingly, and her hair was ringed with a tiara of flowers.  Her feet were unshod, and as she moved, they didn't leave any marks on the floor.  She moved with the grace of a dancer, and when she stopped little sparkles seemed to flow around her briefly before settling.  She chose an old workbench as her throne, flowed onto it with beauty and looked around the shop.

"I see no books, Pockets.  Why is that?" she asked.  "I see pens and pencils and paper and parchment and not one single bit of writing.  Why is that?  I thought all humans wrote."

Pockets said, quite tersely, "I never learned how to read, so that means I probably don't know how to write."  He moved about his forge, twiddling a poker and continued, "Doesn't seem to matter, though.  I do all right.  Anything I need to know, I just ask."

"Ah."  Journiey said simply.  "Did you know that there are over two hundred different combinations that would make harder steel?  Did you know that if you inflate a bag with hot air, it rises?  Did you know that your friend Davinci wrote volumes on the human anatomy as well as extreme descriptions on machines he had invented but never built?  Did you know any of this?"

"No, I didn't.  I knew he was writing and his drawings were interesting, but what of it.  They were his, not mine."  Pockets replied.

"Pockets, the world of writing is so that things can be shared.  The world of books is so that the sharing can be between people that have never met."  She thought a moment.  "Right now, in a land not to terribly far away, there is a man, who is writing a book about adventure, and fighting and war.  These are terrible things, to be sure, but he's also writing about love, and loss, and finding oneself."

"So...," Pockets mused, "if you fill a bag with hot air, it will rise."

She laughed.  "Oh yes. That and so much more.  It's all contained in books, Pockets.  I would hate to see you knowledge pass away into dust and memory.  Dust has no mind, and memory... fades."

Pockets came closer and climbed onto the workbench to sit next to Journiey.  "I've heard all this before, Journiey.  Bags and Grizelda have been after me for years to learn to read.  The nuns all gave up on me, deeming me unteachable.  It's not that I don't want to, it's just that I can't."

"Oh, piffle!"  Journiey put an arm around his shoulder and pulled him close.  "Maybe it was all in the way you were being taught."  She floated back down to the ground, turned back to him and said, "You know... there is a library in this kingdom.  Not terribly well used and a lot of the books have gone to mold.  There are some interesting volumes there.  Some dealing with mechanics, some dealing with philosophy, some dealing with the wonders of the stars themselves."  She turned toward the door and made her majestic way there.  At the door, she turned and spoke again.  "You might be surprised to find a book there about you, and Bags."

Pockets jumped down from the bench, saying with surprise "About me and Bags?  How?  Why?"

Journiey smiled and said "It was written by a man that had heard tales of two men, who seemed to find trouble wherever they went.  He became determined to track down their tales and capture them in books for all to see.  It is through books, you see, that things are not forgotten.  I'll be there if you decide to learn again."

"You'll teach me?"  Pockets said, with tears in his eyes.

"I wouldn't trust it to anyone else.  Oh, I might look a tiny bit different." she cautioned.  We wouldn't want people to know that a tree spirit was among them." She winked and said "Come up and see me some time."  She was gone.

Pockets wiped his eyes.  He didn't know why he had shed them, only that they had come unbidden.  He looked around at his shop, feeling it was cramped and closed in.  He decided he needed to get out of the cave and find a broader perspective. He closed down the forge, set his drawings under a stone for safekeeping, and left.

The day passed in loud and boisterous merriment.  As promised, all the people that had worked hard to make this an event had been paid from the old treasury.  Their pockets jingled as they went home that night, smiling as they had not in a very long time. 

The Bangalarians showed remarkable skill in drinking, and Damien was hard pressed to keep up with them.  At one point he turned to Bags and said "I'm glad you're footing the bill for this!" before hurrying off to fill another order.

Damien had to hire extra help and one, a woman named Marie, broad faced, reddish hair, and easy laugh, quickly became a favorite.  Damien watched her handle a rough table, full of men with groping hands and leering drunken smiles.  She did it with ease, shushing rude comments and artfully dodging hands aimed where they shouldn't be.

He called her over when she was done.  "Where did you learn to take care of yourself like that?" 

"Oh, it's easy, sir.  I grew up with eleven brothers."  she replied.

Damien nodded and said "Don't call me sir.  I expect you to be punctual, handle the orders just like you did at that table, and treat all customers with respect and ... and...  ", he had run out of steam because Marie was looking up at him with her twinkling green eyes and smiling.

"Of course... Damien." she said, before running off to take another order.  Damien felt like his whole world had shifted.  And it was a good thing.

The sun moved through it courses, and the stars came out.  Bags and Grizelda were walking back to the Mansion when a thought suddenly occurred to Grizelda.  "Bags," she said, "have you seen Pockets at all today?"

Bags thought briefly and said "Nope.  I know he was down at his shop.  Maybe he's working on something that will surprise and amaze us."

Grizelda looked in the direction of the Blacksmith's shop, dark and a bit gloomy. "I hope he's all right."

Bags put an arm around Grizelda and said "Griz, if there's one thing I know about Pockets, it's that he's all right.  He does some stupid things on occasion, and I mean really, really stupid things.  Sometimes what he does makes no sense to me at all.  It may take some time for him to figure it all out, but when he does, he is always all right."

"I know." she said.  "But it's part of my job in this family to worry."

A light was shining from one of the high windows in the Keep.

'My life is good." thought Pockets. 

He sat on one of the stones of the parapet outside of what he called his room.  It was in the Keep, and very high up.  Pockets didn't really like to be that high, but he loved the view, so he figured the trade off was worth it.

From his perch, he could see the entire kingdom.  He could see the lights on in the Mansion and see tiny figures moving against the lights.  He pretended he could hear laughter from the group as Bags told them tales from their adventures or jokes that he had heard a thousand times. 

He imagined sitting there, among the family, eating and talking and just being... normal.  He sighed.  He knew, for all his imagining and wishing that it would never be, could never be true.

His life, his mind, drifting between hither and yon, this world and the next and the one after that, was made up of such stuff that even he did not understand it.  He envied Bags, for his normalcy, for his love of Grizelda, for the ability to walk down the street and not wonder at ...  for simply being able to walk down the street with a calm mind.

He was not sad, truly.  He was, if anything, perhaps a bit melancholy, a bit cheered, a bit distant.  He did, indeed, love his life.  All the little things that came and went, the adventures, the bad times, the good times.  And the people.  Ah, yes.  It was the people that he met.

Grizelda, with her never ending capacity to love, to accept, to try to understand. How lucky was he to have her in his life.  How fortunate to have someone that would be there to correct him when he was wrong, to love him for all his faults and oddities.

Capitani, with her bottomless joy and love of everything and everyone. Her husband Thom seemed like a very good man, incredibly supportive.  Bren, whose real name was Josh, but Capitani introduced him as Bren just as a joke.  Exactly the sort of thing she'd do.  Josh or Bren, either way, was a lucky boy to have such parents.  The boy himself, bright and curious with a wicked sense of humor.  Yes, he'd do fine in the future.

'Good lord!' he thought to himself. 'How many have there been?  Hundreds?  Thousands?'  And now there was Journiey, who was going to teach him one of the things that had always been outside his reach.

And there was Bags.  Bags from the beginning and Bags to the end.  Friend, brother, father.  There were no words, only images of past adventures.

A tear ran down his smiling face.  He paid it no mind. He wondered, though at the amount of tears he had shed over the past few weeks.  It was as if he had never cried before, there seemed to be so many.

"Maybe I'm getting old." he said.  "Sensitive in my old age."

He longed to hear the music of the Queen's Gamboni again, to talk to Bruce or listen to Suzy's laughter as she went off on one of her wild tales of their adventures. He knew they had gone to a land where she said magic ruled, and he wondered how it all turned out. 

"Thinking and thinking and solving problems I create", he thought aloud. "That's all I'm really good for."

A figure detached from the wall behind him.  It was dressed in the black and white, day and night of her trade.  Capitani crossed over to where Pockets was sitting, and joined him.  Her legs dangled over the edge and as she swung them, her heels would make a rhythmic thump on the stones.

"I figured I'd find you up here.  Bren was asking about you." she said, looking off in to the distance.

"I thought his name is Josh." Pockets said.

"If I start to call him Josh now, everyone will be confused." she laughed.  "So here, in this place, I'll call him Bren.  At least for a little while.  Maybe on his next birthday I'll change his name to the right one."

The two sat in silence, looking out over the kingdom.  Lights could be seen coming on or going off in the various houses, shacks, and shops.

"It's beautiful up here." She said, interrupting the night.

"Yes." he agreed. "It is."

"You know, Pockets," she began, "if I had not have met Thom..." she let it trail off.

"I like it up here," he said, "because up here it's quiet.  Because up here, there's just me and my thoughts, and up here I can't cause any trouble."

"Shall I go, then?" she asked, looking at him.

He turned and looked at her full in the face.  He took in the tired brow, the blue eyes that shone with just the start of a tear and he shook his head. "No.  It's okay.  I was just ... somewhere else."

"Somewhere sad?" she asked.

"No.  Not really."  He sighed.  Somewhere in the distance, in the dark, a few notes of a flute floated up to them.  "Actually, I was thinking how lucky I am, to have all the people in my life.  People like you."  He started to reach up to stroke her cheek, but stopped half way and the hand softly drifted back to his lap. "Sometimes I don't think I deserve them, Capitani."

"Ah, but Pockets." she said.  "Have you ever stopped to think that these very people feel the same way about you?  That without you in their life, it would be so very dull and lifeless?" 

She reached over, picked up his hand and stroked her cheek with it.  He stiffened slightly, but she ignored it, and continued to hold his hand.  "I won't go anywhere, my friend.  Not yet, anyway."

Softly, in a far off voice, he replied, "I know."

Night birds twittered in counter-point to the flute, which was a good thing, because while the birds knew their song, the flautist apparently did not.  Overhead, a shooting star dropped from the sky to circle the planet and fling itself back out into the void.  Bigun, the larger of the twin moons shone down with reflected light, and smiled. 

"Just old ghosts, Capi." Pockets said.  "I have a wonderful life."  He nodded. "Yes I do.  There are just some times, though..."

"I know, Pockets.  We all have those moments." she filled in the space.

"I wish I could tell you what is in my head.  I wish I could show you the things I have seen.  There are times when I wish to find the Mad Wizard and have him take back all the gifts that he gave me."  He looked over at her.  "I don't know everything, you know?"

She laughed and hugged him and kissed his cheek.  Then she stood up and walked the dangerous parapet for a few feet before doing a handstand and bouncing back to sit next to him.

"Pockets", she said, in a deep and sonorous voice, "nobody knows everything!  Their head would blow up!"  She poked him in the ribs, which got a wriggle out of him.  She bopped him on the top of his head, which got a poke at her in response.

"There you go! Come back to life, little Pockets." she smiled at him. "When you go away, it makes me feel sad and lonely."

"You have Thom, and Jo.. Bren.  Now, you have Griz and Bags, too." he said.

"Ah, this is true, this is true." She sang as she hopped off the parapet and stood with her hands on her hips, facing him.  She stood there so long in silence that Pockets had to turn around and look back.  Quick as a wink, perhaps a bit quicker, she rushed up to him, pulled his face forward with both her hands and kissed him full on the lips.  Then she let him go, without removing her hands.

"Do not think, not for one second, Mister Chester Pockets, that you being out of anyone’s life will keep them from being sad and lonely.  YOU are, and you always will be the one, the only, truly incredible Pockets." 

She leaned forward as if to whisper in his ear.  Instead, she gently bit it, which produced a yelp from him.  "And that was for ever, every thinking otherwise!"  She bounded away from him, while he reached up and rubbed the place where her teeth had been.

"That hurt, Capitani!" he complained.

"Oh, don't be such a baby!" she said. She put her hands behind her back and wriggled at him with a mischevious smile on her face. "I brought you a present."

"You did what?" Pockets asked, uncomprehendingly.

"I brought you a present!  Well... actually, it was Thom and Bren, but they asked me, and I told them I thought it was perfect.  So the three of us went back to the Midway and we got it for you."  She disappeared through the doors to his bedroom.  A second later, her head popped back out to say, "Wait here." before disappearing.  A moment after that it reappeared to say "Don't go anywhere." and she was gone. 

The third time it popped back to ask "Have you gone yet?" Pockets cried out "Capi!"  And she came out on to the parapet with her hands behind her back.

"Now, it's not much, but I want to tell you the story first. Is that all right?" she asked.

Pockets nodded.

"Thom and Bren were walking through the midway when they saw this thing.  It was a small thing, but they said it reminded them so much of you, they just had to have it, but they came and got me to make sure."

"Sure of what?" Pockets asked.

"That you'd take it.  That you'd accept it." she answered.  "So, when I saw it, I knew it was the perfect thing too, but I wanted to make sure as well.  Tonight, after Bags and Grizelda came home, we showed them this thing and they thought it was perfect as well."

"We were going to bring it down to the shop to surprise you, but when we got there, it was all dark and locked up.  By the way, those locks are the neatest things. Did you make them to keep folks out or keep you in?"  She waited for his answer.

"Uh," replied Pockets, after he realized it was his turn, "I don't want anyone to get hurt, so it's to keep folks out when I'm not there."

Capitani nodded. "I figured as much.  There was a woman there, large, dressed in a green gown, beautiful face.  She said we might find you up here." she paused and gave Pockets a sideways sly look.  "Is this someone I should be worried about, Pockets, my love?"

Caught off guard, Pockets could only stammer.  "Nnno.  She's just... well.. she's a friend." He gave up and said "She's going to teach me how to read."

"Oh, how marvelous!" Capitani laughed and clapped.  "That's wonderful, Pockets, really it is."  She smiled at him, with her big blue eyes shining, until he could not help it but smile back.  "Now... where was I?  You know I get lost these days..."

"Journiey told you that I was up here." Pockets supplied.

"Ohhhhh. It's Journiey, huh?"  Capitani poked. Pockets obligingly blushed silently in the dark. 

"Okay, we saw the light on in your room and the others sent me up to get you.  I decided that was kind of silly, when they could very well come up and see you themselves.  I told them, however, to wait for my signal before coming up, because I wanted to talk to you."

Her face showed a bit of confusion, and she pulled on hand from behind her back and counted. "Found Pockets. Check." She ticked off one finger.  "Talk to Pockets."  She looked at him, and asked "All right?" 

He nodded, smiling at her silliness.  "I'm much better, Capitani." he said.

"Good, and check." she ticked off another finger.  "Give Pockets his present." She peered at him again.  Stepping closer without revealing what was behind her back, she looked all around him, left and right and said "Hmmm... Not check." 

She looked at her hand with it's two fingers and one thumb, and continued, "Now... where did I put it?  It was here just a minute ago." 

She reached behind her and brought her other hand out, empty.  "Nope.  Not there." 

Again, she reached behind her with her free hand, and brought out her other hand, empty as well.  "Not there either. Well, this is a mystery!" She put on a pouty face of pondering disappointment.

Pockets started to chuckle where he sat. Quietly he applauded her for his private performance of Capitani's foolery.

"I know!" she said.  She bounded straight up, did a somersault, which revealed something small and brown at her back, held by one hand.  She landed facing him, and said, "Did you see it?"

Pockets nodded.

"Where was it?" she asked worriedly. "I've been looking for it everywhere!"

"Capi, it's behind you!  In your hand!" Pockets cried, exactly as if he was a child at a birthday party.

Capitani looked very puzzled, pulled her hand out from behind her back, empty.  "You mean this hand?" She asked him.

Pockets was now laughing full blown.  He couldn't help himself.  It was a joy to be here, to be him, and see his friend performing for just him.  He had to steady himself to keep from falling off the parapet. 

"No! In your other hand!" he cried, laughing.

Her other hand came out empty as well.  More puzzled then every, she complained, "Well, phooey.  Perhaps you should come show me, Mister Chester Pockets, if you know so much!"

She stood there while Pockets hopped down from his perch.  He walked over to her, his smiling eyes never leaving hers.  Standing toe to toe, nose to nose, he reached, gingerly around her with both hands.

And felt something furry.  His eyes grew wide and he said "What the hell?"

"Don't you let go of it, buddy."  Capitani said.  She kissed him once again on the lips and leapt right out of his embrace, to land a few feet away, near the door.

Pockets looked at what he held.  It was small, and it was brown, and it smiled back at him with a crooked grin and beady eyes.  Its arms were short and stubby and its legs were too long for its body.  What tail it had looked more like an after thought than the real thing.  And it was stuffed.

"It's a monkey." was all he said, smiling.  He pulled it close and hugged it. From closed eyes, tears started to run down his face, leaking into his smile.

Capitani nodded to herself, walked over to the parapet and whistled, long and loud.  She turned and walked back to Pockets, and gently said. "You might want to pull yourself together, Chet.  How often do your friends see you crying over a stuffed monkey?"

Pockets wiped his eyes with one hand and nodded, and said "Aw, to hell with 'em."  He kissed Capitani on her cheek and whispered. "Thank you, Capi."

"My pleasure, Chet."

There was a dinner that night, held in the high room of the Keep.  There was laughter, and there was song.  Queen's Gamboni had returned from their adventure at the Village of Shopkeepers with a tale of wonder and magic.  Harv and Carlie, reunited, left off as if no time had elapsed.  They were inseparable, and apparently could hear nothing that was going on.

"Get a room, you two!" Suzy cried.  At her prompting, they did just that, somewhere else in the Keep.

Bags told a tale about a merchant, out on the Midway, who was accosted by two men.  Apparently the two men became enamored with one of the merchant's wares, something he had just that very day received from one of the merchants of Bangala.

The merchant was told by these two men that if he sold it his life would be forfeit. So fearing for his life, he held onto it until the two men returned, followed by a fearsome woman, dressed in black and white.

The woman walked straight up to the merchant, and flanked by the two men looked him in the eyes and asked in a rather gruff and foreign sounding voice. "How much for the monkey?"

The merchant, terrified for his life, gave out an answer that was half the price of the stuffed animal.  After paying the asked for price, the threatening trio disappeared into the crowd.

The merchant, a law abiding man if ever there was one, went straight to the pub and complained to Bags about the evil people in the kingdom.  Bags consoled the man, paid him the other half of the price of the monkey and bought him an ale.

"And that is the sort of trouble I have!" Bags complained. "If I had not recognized the outfit you wear, Capitani, I would have had to organize a search party to find the bad guys and bring them to justice."

"Trouble?" asked Capitani. "Me?"  She blinked her blue eyes and smiled sweetly.  "Lil’ old me?"

"Don't you believe her, Bags." her husband injected.  "She may look sweet on the outside, but on the inside..." he suddenly found he couldn't finish the sentence.  Probably because of the elbow that appeared in his midriff.  When he got his breath back, he continued, a bit harshly "On the inside, you'll find her just as sweet."

"Thank you, dear." Capitani said, smiling broadly to show her innocence.

"Have you named him yet?"  Grizelda asked of Pockets.

"Sure!" Pockets replied.  "He told me his name the second he met me."  He held the monkey in one hand, and manipulated its head until it was looking directly at Grizelda.  "His name is Simon."

Grizelda made a sideways comment to Bags, "He looks like he's looking right at you, doesn't he?"

The conversation broke down to how lifelike the stuffed monkey, Simon was.  Everyone had to hold him and commented upon how soft he was.  Everyone had a turn at making his head turn and manipulating him so that he danced or sung, or told jokes.

Nobody was better at it then Bags.  In Bags' hands Simon took on a broader life, answering questions and asking some of his own.  Quickly, it seemed, Simon had become part of the group.

"It seems that Simon has found his place in our legend, Bags." Pockets said when Simon came back to him.  "Did you know that there are books in the library that contain stories about us?"

"No way!" said Bags and Grizelda, together. 

"I didn't even know we had a library." said Bags.

"How do you know that, Pockets?" asked Grizelda. "You can't read."

"Not yet," said Pockets, "but I will."

"What brought this change about?" Grizelda asked.  She turned to the others and explained that Pockets had never had much use for reading.

"Well, see.  There's this friend, who's going to be helping me learn.  She's the one that told me about the books."

"She?" asked Bags, his eyes growing wide.  "Not another woman, Pockets." He placed his face in his hands and said again, "Not another woman."  Theatrical sobbing came from his hands, but it was obvious to all that he was smiling all the while.

"It's not like that at all, Bags.  This is a special woman.  Her name is Journiey, and she's a wood spirit, okay?

"Sure she is." said Grizelda, winking broadly.  "A special woman, for a special man."

"Aw Griz, quit teasing.  This will be different, I promise.  No more trouble-making for me." Pockets crossed his heart. 

"Besides," he continued, "I'm not going to have time for trouble-making.  I'm going to be making something rather unusual for the next few weeks.  I'll need to learn to read if I'm going to find the sort of information I'm looking for."

"Oh. My. God." said Bags, splitting each word into its separate sentence.  "What are you going to make this time?"

"I call it a 'hot air balloon'" Pockets said.  "It's for traveling long distances through the air."

"Through the air?!" Suzy exclaimed.  "Well, that would be novel, that it would."  She turned to Bruce and asked "Do ye think we could maybe work up a song about that, lover?  Bags and Pockets and Grizelda too, all sailing though the air?"

"And let's not forget about Simon!" Capitani chimed in.

"Legends" muttered Pockets.  "That's what we'll all be someday."

"Damn straight!" said Grizelda.  Standing up, she raised her glass.  "To legends!" she toasted.

"Wait!" said Pockets.  Grizelda looked at him puzzled.  He stood up on the table and raised his own glass, "To Legends, most certainly."  He paused and looked around at all the faces there, familiar, warm, loving.   "But to family, most definitely!"  He took a mighty swallow and said "To Family!"

And the roar went out through the open window, to float up to the moons and fall back again. 

"To Family!"


***********************  The End  **********************