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The Mundane's Tale

“A mundane, a magocrat and a mapmaker are in three prison cells.”

Silence followed the young wizard’s statement like a flock of ducks after a leaky grain barge.

Merflatug, dux of Flasten, tapped impatiently on the wooden arm of his chair.

“And then what?” said Tejun, Flasten’s senior warden of security and the green guard’s penultimate boss.

“What?” said the guard, flustering. He looked like a child’s drawing of a holly bush in his bright green robe, with one giant, red berry on top.

“It’s a joke, right?” Tejun went on. “I haven’t heard this one before. Most of them start with, ‘A mundane, a magocrat and a mapmaker are fishing ...”

“Or ‘walk into a public eating facility’,” interjected Haile, Flasten’s minister of finance and taxation.

“Yes, or, ‘are in a field’.”

“Stop that,” Merflatug said, gripping his armrest with white knuckles. “I asked for a report, and I’ll have a report from you, young weard, or you’ll find out what being fired really means.”

“Sir!” the young green said, turning into a holly bush in the rain. “I report that a mundane, a magocrat, and a mapmaker are in three prison cells.”

Silence remained a large part of the response from the three senior weards.

“That sounds vaguely familiar...” Tejun said with mounting impatience.

The green spoke over the general. “They were apprehended attempting to sell pot, sir!”

The three weards sat back and smiled at each other.

“Well, that’s good then,” Haile said, showing her teeth. “Our new anti-drug campaign is getting off to a fine start.”

“What anti-drug campaign?” Tejun said.

“There has been an outbreak among the youth of Flasten to smoke hallucinogenic plants,” Haile said, placing her fingers to her lips and huffing air. “The common street term for the plant marijuana, or cannibis, is pot. Catching people who are dealing keeps the youth from getting the drug.”

“Yes,” Merflatug said, resuming his drumming on his chair. “Now we must interrogate them to find the suppliers.”

“Oh, I’ll take care of that,” Tejun said, a fast man when faced with a brand.

The young guard looked even more embarrassed.

“Sirs,” he said.

Haile glared at him.

“And lady,” he added.

“Yes, yes, what is it?” Merflatug said, pounding his armrest with his fist. “Is there any more to your report?”

The green hesitated. His name was Percy, and this was his first day. He was beginning to see why his fellow guards, mostly all greens and the youngest several months his senior, had sent him up to give the report. He kicked himself for being idealistic and vowed to curb his enthusiasm.

“Speak up, man,” Merflatug said, leaving a small dent in the chair.

“Sir! And lady! Not drugs!”

“What do you mean? What else is pot?”

“Sir! And lady! Iron pots! For cooking, sir! And lady!” Percy wanted to wring out his collar.

“And this is illegal because?” Tejun asked.

“Flasten Ordinance No. 10043!” Percy wailed. “Requisite Tax and License to Import/Export Precious or Useful Metals!”

“Oh, I remember that one,” said the minister of finance and taxation. “We’ve made quite a bit of pegs off that rule.”

“But there isn’t a whole lot of money in it,” Tejun said. “So few metals get imported or exported here.”

“There is, if we take all the pegs.”

Tejun nodded slowly. “This might explain the huge underground trade in such things,” he said.

“Hogwash,” Merflatug said finally, his fingers stopping on his armrest.

“No, really, dux. Last year alone, we apprehended seventeen mundanes, four mapmakers and two rogue weards in conjunction with the illicit sale of metals and other materials.”

“Shut up, Tejun,” Merflatug said. “A mundane, a magocrat and a mapmaker would not work together to sell iron pots. That’s why the jokes are funny. Those three archetypes would never get along long enough to have time to create the right contacts to perform the difficult task of moving pots.”

Percy wisely kept his mouth shut. He thought, Does it matter now? They’ll find out, and they’ll know that I never lied to them. His mind went a little bit farther, and he cringed. If they don’t understand now, they won’t believe I didn’t lie to them. He schooled his face to normalcy. I think I’m going to Domus tomorrow. No, this evening. As soon as my shift is up.

“We must interrogate them, and find out who supplied them with the pot.”

“Perhaps,” said Haile, as the three brushed past Percy to go to the prisons, “they hid the pot in the pot.”

“Haile?”

“Yes?”

“Stop that.”

********

The green guard entered the meager cell containing Plin, the mundane, and three high-level magocrats followed him in.

Plin stared in fascination at them.

The foremost was the Dux of Flasten, a man large in presence but short in mass. His red cloak was fur-lined and padded, and his face constantly looked on the verge of exploding. The second man was obviously some sort of security wizard, and his bright lavendar cloak had odd pockets over it and was cut into some sort of uniform. “Security” was written in a badge on his breast pocket. The woman was taller than both the men and wore a formless orange cloak that made her look like a walking pylon. Her face had that kind of sharpness about it that generally suggested “accountant.”

“Mundane you will answer our questions or be branded!” the security wizard said, punctuating each word with a stab at the air.

“Branded as what?” Plin asked. He felt he had nothing to lose. He wondered briefly if Duk and Carlos were dealing with things as he was.

“You must tell us who your dealer is,” the accountant wizard said.

“Dealer?”

“You were caught trying to sell pot, correct?” the security wizard asked.

“Pots,” Plin corrected. “For cooking. You have them in custody.”

“Hogwash,” the dux said.

“No, seriously. You put things in them like water and wild rice, and you get food out of it.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Merflatug said. “I mean, Hogwash! Selling iron pots was only your cover for selling illegal drugs! A mundane, a magocrat and a mapmaker do not work together for anything as ... as ...”

“Mundane,” Plin supplied.

“As normal as metal smuggling,” the dux finished, glaring at him.

“So you’re saying you don’t believe what you see, and want to find out what really happened by listening to a story from me?”

“A truth from you,” Haile said.

“The honest truth,” Tejun said.

“The gods’ honest truth,” Merflatug smiled. “Seruvus will be listening.”

Plin stared at them. His mind leapt to a conclusion. “And you’ll get Duk and Carlos to tell you stories too, and that’ll help you figure out what really happened?”

“Speak now, or be branded!” Tejun said.

“As what? You never said.” Plin held his arms in front of him and stepped back as Tejun leaned forward threateningly. “All right, all right. Here’s what happened ...”

********

A mundane, a magocrat and a mapmaker paddled their canoe into the duxy of Flasten.

That is to say, I paddled it myself, as the magocrat was too high and mighty to do any real work and besides his attempts at propelling us with magic had failed miserably. And the mapmaker was sick, unloading all of the precious food and water he had eaten and drank over the side of the boat. Trust the mundane to do all the work.

The canoe was loaded down, right? We had 11 iron pots. We used to have 12, but we traded the only magic pot for a fishing net that didn’t work, which is why the food and water was precious and which was why the magocrat eventually pushed the mapmaker overboard into the water, where he drowned.

The magocrat knew a guy in Flasten who would take our pots.

“Selling metals in Flasten is illegal,” I said. “We need to stop with the ministry of finance and taxation to get a permit to sell our pots.”

Duk waved off my objections and made me carry the canoe, the pots and the corpse of the mapmaker through the town’s streets to a seedy section of dark tenements and black back alleys. Twice I tried to direct myself to the ministry, and twice something the magocrat did made me want to follow him more. I think it was magic. The magocrat was fond of doing things like that. He tried to make me think I had a choice, right? And I rarely did, really. He was kind enough to let me say what I wanted, but then he would just do as he pleased.

I have, in the past, contemplated trying to kill him, but had not yet had the opportunity to attempt this direct method to freedom.

In the back alleys of the shadiest part of Flasten — I highly recommend, dux, that you burn the place down — Duk made contact with his rogue weard counterpart, a shifty, skunk-faced guy in a grubby amber robe. Actually, I remember the robe to look striped, like amber and blue and green, as though he had cobbled it together from other weards he had accosted on dark nights.

Duk and he clasped arms like they were brothers, and maybe there was some resemblance.

“Do you have the stuff?” the rogue said.

“I never fail to deliver,” Duk said. “Do you have my payment?”

They must have been brothers, for there was no checking of the pots to make sure they were real and there was no looking in the small hemp sack handed over to Duk. All I could think was, how are we going to eat without a pot to cook in? Maybe we should have kept one.

Well, after the deal was done and the two weards had finished their celebration, leaving me to guard the mapmaker’s corpse and the canoe, I followed Duk to a place with cheap rooms for rent. Or was it rooms for cheap rent? It’s not as though we had any pegs on us, or maybe we did, in that small hemp sack Duk was given. He hadn’t shown it to me or opened it at all as far as I could tell.

Duk must’ve used his magic again, cuz we got a room with no problem. I put the canoe in a corner, and Carlos in another, and Duk crashed on the bed, hugging his small hemp sack like it was his next meal. I watched him until he started snoring, then snuck out.

Even though it was the middle of the night, I found an odd job hauling bags of rice from a barge to a homeless shelter in one of the nicer parts of town. They gave me a good meal and a few pegs for my help. I gave most of the pegs to a couple of kids playing in the street, then went in search of what I was really looking for. I found it back in the dank shades near where Duk was sleeping.

I’ve done some bad things in my life, I can’t deny that. It’s a swamp out there, right, and you can’t be perfect. But in civilization I’ve always been a model citizen and tried to help where I could. I didn’t sell the pots illicitly and I didn’t buy or try to deal illegal drugs. What I thought was, maybe I can help stop this process by getting rid of a dealer, here. By stopping Duk from doing it again. I want to be a good guy, see?

I bought the torutsen with guilt on my conscience. I know it’s illegal. I know it’s wrong, and I was propagating one underground industry to destroy another one. But you gotta deal with what you can deal with, right? You gotta fight the battle in front of you, not the one you don’t know about it. As my grandma used to say, a field full of wild rice is worth two birds in the bush.

Back at the room, I soaked a cloth with the torutsen and dropped it on Duk’s snoring face. This immediately woke him, but the drug would take full effect. He roared at me and tried to use his magic, but that’s what torutsen does, right? It stops that. I launched myself at him, and we wrestled. Somewhere in there, the bag slipped off the bed. I don’t know what happened to it.

Duk’s not a strong man. He relies on his magic for almost everything. Without it, I could easily overpower him. Soon, he was barely conscious on the floor and I was on top of him, smashing his face and wailing at the pain I was causing in another human being. I held resolute, though, because I knew that I was working for a greater good.

“This is for the children!” I cried, raising my fists and smashing his nose.

“This is for the law!” I yelled, lifting his head and slamming it into the floor.

“This is for my mother!” I hollered in pain and misery, jabbing my straightened fingers into his throat.

I feel bad that I killed him, but I know, I know deep inside that thousands of people would be happy that a piece of the illicit trade in useful metals was curbed.

********

“Of course our fight brought the security guards around, and they apprehended me,” Plin finished, blowing his nose. “I don’t know anything else.”

“Er,” Haile said. “The magocrat ...”

Tejun elbowed her. “A wonderful tale,” he said. “A true hero you must be.”

“And the mapmaker ... Ouch.”

“Haile,” Merflatug said, moving his foot off hers. “Do be good and get me a glass of water.”

“But the mundane ...”

“Haile!”

“Yes, dux.” She left.

“Thank you for your candor,” Merflatug said.

“Yes, you may have just helped us capture a very great criminal.”

“Anything at all that I can do to make your lives more exciting,” Plin said, grinning broadly.