The Porous Heist

The riff was kind of eerie when done with clarinets, but the Wood Mites tuned up anyway and did as they were bid.

Stubby, the front man, declaimed,

"Oh, let the rain splash down and soak our clothes, the clouds are overhead,
We are Travelers on the Gien roads, our instruments our bed.
Stan' ‘fore the leaders of a warlike race this world will see again,
who talk of peace that never comes, hey, war will rule again."

The man in the dark and very hooded cloak nodded imperceptibly.

"Not bad," he said. "A little more oboe there. Practice that stutter. It's not a tough riff."

"But, sir," Mitch, the bassoonist, said, "this piece was scored for strings, not woodwinds."

The man, who was short underneath his dark cloak, waved the complaint aside.

"I assure you, the Gien High Command will not know the difference."

********

"You know why I love musicians?" the man in the dark cloak said as he threw back his dripping wet hood to let the rain splash down upon his face.

"Why's that, Tryggvi?" asked the dwarf at his side, proud to be only a hand shorter than his companion.

"Because, Harry, they may ask lots of questions, but they never ask the right questions."

********

The Giens had established something they called a "tavern" about three miles from the border of Huinsy on their Black Road, which grew daily on its trek toward Domus Palus.

Tryggvi and Harry had spent a considerable amount of time discovering what this "tavern" was supposed to be, and why the Gien High Command allowed its soldiers to spend copious amounts of time there. The soldiers on patrol whom they captured to discuss the tavern with often, at first, needed a change of pants, but soon, strangely, hardly could be held up for the gales of laughter escaping them. Many of them died with tears in their eyes and grins on their faces, but eventually, the truth was heard.

Tryggvi and Harry were not alone. Two people, one of them a foreigner, seldom made up underground movements against invading empires. But the short Mar and the shorter Dwarf did not have copious amounts of resources at this stage of their game.

Thus, Harry, aka Harmangar "We Can Sell It" Grabstrangler, found the Wood Mites, modified a dwarfish song about seeking peace, and kept the wool pulled down tightly over the eyes of the more intelligent of the musicians, without which one of Tryggvi's most infamous exploits may never have occurred.

The other two members of Tryggvi's command at the time were Cork and Knot, twin brothers from Pidel who knew more about applying magic to the arts of deception and thievery than a pig knew about rolling in mud. Unfortunately, due to accidents during life, their faces were marked, often on walls and trees in every town and village they came across. Of all the things the Giens were, forgiving was not one of them, and so Cork and Knot could not chance being deceptive around the Gien High Command, which often had some level of anti-magic around it, or so Tryggvi told them.

The tavern sold incapacitating rotten grain and water drinks to anyone willing to pay. Tryggvi found it interesting that anyone could go in, even a Mar, though why a Mar would want to go in and drink was beyond him. His first time in there, he had felt acutely uncomfortable, even as he gently tipped this "beer" onto the floor when no one was looking, while he learned more about the establishment.

The Giens had occupied this portion of Marrishland thoroughly early in their occupation. It was one of their more secure areas. A hundred miles west, for instance, skirmishes with Tryggvi's never-before-met-but-oft-cheered compatriots in the resistance frequently led to executions and hangings on the stretch of the Black Road known as the Path of Tears, not too far from this very town.

Here, though, next door to the never-thought-about-resisting-hey-that's-our-white-flag-you're-stealing Huinsy, the Gien High Command thought it was about as secure as it could be. Tryggvi planned to show them otherwise.

He admitted the tavern had its uses, and so did beer. For instance, buy a table a round of the stuff, and no one cared that you were local. Buy the table a second round, and very quickly no one cared period. He learned the Giens planned this area to be a regional capital one day, when the Black Road circled all the way around inhabitable Marrishland like a noose around the throat. Plans had begun to start the road from this end.

Most importantly, though, Tryggvi learned the names and homes of many of the Gien High Command. Granted, most of these places were far, far away and technically out of the area he cared about, but someone was in charge in this region, and he learned that that person was Colonel Porous Watyra, a younger man with a good head for numbers. The soldiers in town hated him because Porous made them reorganize stuff. His men, mostly accountants themselves, loved him, for the same reason.

Tryggvi loved Colonel Porous Watyra for focusing so heavily on the supply lists of things that he never checked the supply lists of people, who often vanished while wandering in a beautifully lit meadow on a clear spring day with the birds swimming lazily through the air overhead.

It was unfortunate, however, that Tryggvi's resistance could best help his country by doing something about the things that came in. After all, and this was one thing Porous realized, people without things were just people; people with things were an unconquerable army.

*******

Stubby, Mitch and their bandmates, Carl the clarinet player and Chunky the oboist, sat with Harry, completely unaware the dwarf was considering how much the instruments would be worth if some unseen blood were discovered inside the valves.

"All right," Harry said. "Here are your papers. You're to be at the tavern to set up at dusk, and you'll be playing all night. Tryggvi and I'll be there, don't worry. You'll be playing for Colonel Porous Watyra himself! So don't let us down."

"When do you want us to play the song?" Stubby asked. He was the brains of the bunch. Harry knew it was a sure sign that the brains weren't very heavy if they didn't learn to delegate. I mean, he thought, they could only name our mastermind, right? They didn't know what he looked like.

"Do your own stuff until the crowd's indulged in a bit of beer," Harry answered. "Give them a few hours. When it seems like they're not listening to you, go ahead and play it. You'll get their attention. Boys, that song will get their attention like nothing else!"

The dwarf groaned at the ensuing hand-clapping and cheering. Do they realize they'll be lucky to survive this? I wonder if that bassoon will fit in my bag.

********

The tavern was a central meeting place, Tryggvi learned. Everyone stopped by, from new people to what the tavern owner, Sandy, called regulars, who came in every day. Sandy knew the regulars on a first-name basis. He knew Tryggvi as Oster.

Sandy even knew Colonel Watyra as Porous, but he called him Colonel when the men were around. The men often gave their colonel quite a bit of space, so Sandy often called him Porous. Occasionally, Porous would come in with a group of other officers, and they would be shown to the balcony, a private second-floor space that could see most of the floor below. It had an excellent view of the corner where, when Sandy could find them, musicians played.

Tryggvi learned that among the people who followed armies around were bards and minstrels and groups of people who called themselves "bands." The Mar had music, but not like the Giens did. Stringed instruments in Marrishland often warped; metal was too precious to be wasted on brass instruments. Drums were made and often left behind due to their size. Woodwinds, on the other hand, were useful. There was no end of wood out there, of many varieties, and even more quantities of reeds than woods.

And he found out that, among the army's followers, were large numbers of Mar who had defected ... er, accepted the Giens as being a normal way of life. Tryggvi didn't consider these people very intelligent. The Giens would go away, but the Mar would stay. That was the truth, no matter what things looked like now. Tryggvi would see to it, or die trying.

Sandy didn't care who played in his tavern, so long as they weren't louder than the calls for beer and didn't incite the kinds of riots that involved copious amounts of fire. He did like bands who played local music, for whatever reason.

So Tryggvi had Harry find the Wood Mites, who were mostly Gien but had learned Mar instruments. And while Harry taught the Wood Mites his song, Tryggvi booked their gig for a night when he knew Colonel Porous Watyra was having company. Specifically, a Brigadier General Carver Kinochist, supply master for the entire western edge of the empire.

Tryggvi took a long pull on his beer the afternoon before the concert. He had grown to like the stuff, in small doses. It was certainly easier to pour a bit of this into the water to kill everything than it was to boil the water for so long.

Sandy came by, wiping down his table with a rag.

"You ready for my boys, Sandy?" Tryggvi said with a grin. "They're something special."

Sandy kept the neutral, I'm-everybody's-friend expression of the bartender everywhere.

"I doubt they're more special than that crew last week with the woman, Oster. None of them are women, are they?"

Tryggvi nodded sagely, his grin turning into a sly smile. "Nosir! But I should warn you, the clarinet guy can hit some really high notes."

"Then I'll just put some padding around my spare cups, Oster."

Tryggvi left, his eyes passing across the staircase heading up to the balcony where Colonel Porous would be entertaining the general that night.

*******

Stubby moaned the last few notes of their seventh song of the evening and smiled into the dim light as though expecting any applause.

None came, even when Chunky hammered out a particularly impressive flourish with his oboe.

Mitch leaned over to Stubby, who saw Harry in the crowd, giving him a big smile and a thumbs-up sign. The dark-cloaked Tryggvi sat next to him, motionless.

"I think it's time," he said, because whispering in the crowd's noise would've been impossible to hear.

Stubby nodded. "OK," he said to Carl and Chunky. "On my mark, all right? A one, a two, a one two three ..."

*******

Harry smiled into his cup, recently emptied into a puddle on the floor. Cork sat next to him, wrapped in Tryggvi's dark cloak.

"I should've gone with Tryggvi," Cork rasped. One too many attempts at hanging him had damaged his throat.

"We told you why he couldn't be here," Harry said in tones of someone exasperated. "And why he had to look like he was here. Now, drink your beer."

"This stuff will kill you. It tastes like piss."

"Then you won't even notice it coming out."

Harry surreptitiously looked up at the balcony, where Porous and Carver were finishing a meal and casually talking about whatever it was supply masters talked about. He grinned fiercely, though one could hardly tell for his beard.

"I don't know what you're smiling at," Cork growled.

"A flawless plan," Harry said.

The boys were getting into the song. Somehow, the bassoon banged out the notes like a drum, and the staccato back and forth of clarinet and oboe sounded like strummed stringed instruments. And as attention started to focus on Stubby, his head bobbed and his arms moved and his voice echoed more and more loudly into the growing silence.

"Oh, Giens who steal Mar kids from our beds, like guer unto the night,
who take our homes, our land, our place, leaving little light,
Oh, oh know our palus it shall rise once more, we will again,
sure as konig worms infest the mud, after the summer pour."

"Harry."

"Yes, Cork?"

"I always hated your writing."

"All right. Them's fighting words."

"It's what the boss told us to do."

********

Harry threw the first cheap wooden cup through the silent crowd and into the face of the ecstatic Stubby.

He's probably thinking, "I've never seen a crowd love our music this much," Harry thought as the Wood Mites' playing stalled and the crowd reached for them. Well, that's what he gets for being Gien.

Cork's arm swung far over Harry's head and connected with the man next to them. The blow pushed the man into his table, which collapsed, sending mugs flying. A swing and a miss later, with the crowd already enraged by the song, and thus barfights are born.

Harry worked his way forward, toward where the band had played. The Wood Mites were being beaten senseless by the unruly crowd. He could hear the Colonel's screams for order from behind, and a few officers entering the fray, but people were well drunk. Harry grabbed what he came for, and sidled out the side door.

Cork met him in the dark.

"Let's go," he rasped. "What's that?"

"It's a bassoon. I'm sure I can sell it."

********

"Make lots of friends among your enemies," Tryggvi said once. "Because most of them don't think they're your enemy. People want to believe people are basically good. Don't dissuade them of that notion. That way, we can pull of something like the Porous heist, and not feel guilty about it."

When the riot had spread into the street like a really bad fire, most of the town had turned out to help put it out. Tryggvi had to admire their attempts to maintain order.

He and Knot, cloaked in Knot's magic, had complete access to Colonel Porous Watyra's rooms, and the seals and paperwork inside. They also had access to Brigadier General Carver Kinochist's luggage, although that involved a stab and a few punches.

Harry had written several carefully worded notes concerning supplies and the efficiency of the troops in the west, and now Tryggvi copied the general's mark and drew in the colonel's name and sealed them with the appropriate stamps. He left them in the hands of a courier later that night, with orders to have them delivered as soon as possible.

"So we told them things were extremely efficient," Harry said later, "and didn't make copies of these seals that would let us issue orders from anywhere?"

"That things were so efficient, and so successful, that it looked like the Giens wouldn't be needing any new supplies for more than a year," Tryggvi corrected with a laugh, dipping his wood mug in the river and picking large bits of mud out of the water. "And they'll change the seals the instance they learn the truth. I give us six months maybe."

Harry shook his head in disbelief as his friend upturned a small metal flask into the cup, letting out a generous dollop of something clean and clear.

"What is that?"

"They call it vodka," he said. "It's like a quick boil for the water."

"Well, don't drink too much."

"But there's reasons to celebrate! Hey, how much did you get for the bassoon?"

"Not nearly enough." Harry cleared his throat. "Now that we've destroyed their tavern and stalled the road for a few months, and maybe gotten the region's rulers into big trouble back home ... now that we've done all that, what are we going to do now?"

"Make them really understand what it means to invade Marrishland," Tryggvi said with a strange grimace.

Copyright 2005-2007 Eric Zawadzki and Matthew Schick. All Rights Reserved.
This site has features best viewed in Mozilla Firefox. Download today!