A Common Last - a novel

- The Year 174 of the Kaddish Calendar at Brewers Hall outside of Telm

The metal tip of the cane left the leaf mould and ground into the fine brown stone of the path. Salus' black boot came down beside it. He grunted heavily as he lifted himself out of the roadside and up onto the path. Salus adjusted his coat and brushed off the leaves that had clung to it when he emerged from the treeline. Ahead, he could see the light from within Brewers Hall spilling onto the shrubbed grounds immediately surrounding it. He stalked toward the light, jabbing his cane into the path in counterpoint to the rasping pants that accompanied each step.

The light pulsed gently through the windows of the hall, as if something great moved within it. Salus could just hear a musical rumble emanating from the white wooden building.

He looked up to the bright moon, it's lovely face scarred by the thin black fissure. There was plenty of light for him to navigate the grounds. He left the path and approached the building from the side.

Through the last window at the rear of the hall Salus could see the caller from the waist up. She was apparently standing on some sort of platform. As he approached he heard her entreat, "Hands across... pull by... and swing!" He could not see the musicians. They would be sitting low in chairs beside her.

Salus stepped around a row of bayberry down the side of the building. Here the windows were lower. He could see the dancers swinging and circling. They were not at break. Fine. That's how it would have to be.

He rounded the end of the building and took the front steps unsteadily, yanking the front door and rattling it until realizing that it opened inward. He flung it in abruptly and exhaled.

Music and the heat of bodies poured out of the open door. The sound of the fiddle was uppermost above the stomp and shuffle of the lines of dancers.

"G'evening sir! Welcome," sang out a round faced young woman." The cost is four shads if you care to dance. Two if you just listen."

Salus' eyes grew wide with indignation as he looked down at the homely creature.

An older man sitting behind her looked up at the visitor and immediately rose. "Ambassador Nestillion! We are so honored to have you grace our gathering." He gave the girl a stern, silencing look, then smiled and continued. "Please be our guest at tonight's dance." The man gestured for Salus to come in without payment. "We are most fortunate tonight to have for entertainment one of the most respected..."

Salus brushed past the man without looking at him and headed straight for the lines of dancers, never removing his coat or wiping his boots. Several people sitting out the dance murmured under their hands "Salus Nestillion," and "I thought he was dead."

Salus walked into the the center line of dancers. The lowest foursome was in the middle of circling. His presence interrupted their motion and they had to stop. He pressed forward causing a woman in the set above them to stop short to avoid running into him head on.

"Long lines!" came the call and the dancers unfolded hand in hand in long lines up and down the hall. As the lines parted Salus could see the rest of the way to the top of the hall to the caller on her perch, and the band directly in front of him.

"Forward and back," came the next call, but Salus was already stomping angrily up the opening. The lines tried to move forward but halted to make way for the old man with a cane who had suddenly appeared amongst them.

The caller saw the man and was distracted to the point of forgetting the next call. The outside lines began to falter though many of those dancers remembered their moves, as they did not have an obstacle in their midst – the music still playing drove them on.

Salus reached the top of the hall and stood before the musicians. The guitarist looked up and saw him, then at the lines of dancers rapidly falling into disarray, then questioningly at the caller, who stared at Salus. He stopped playing and was followed shortly thereafter by the mandolin player.

Only the fiddler played on, furiously sawing out a vivid reel with such rhythm that although the accompanying instruments were no longer there the music continued unabated. Though a music stand was before him, he bowed serenely with his eyes closed.

Salus, enraged that the music had not stopped even though he stood before the man, drew back his cane and swept the music stand away. The fiddler's red leather bound tune book fell to the floor. The guitarist quickly plucked it away.

The bow and the music stopped at once. The fiddler opened his eyes. "Salus. How good of you to come."

"Do not mock me, Mil Harei! You are a traitor to Karrigland."

Salus looked beside the fiddler where a banjo sat on its stand. He pursed his lips, considering, then slashed his cane directly into the banjo, tearing a large gash into the skin head. A gasp of astonishment and angry murmurs arose from the crowd.

Salus leaned forward and drew a red cloth from within the banjo. He turned to the crowd and unfurled it: a scarlet and black Hollish flag.

"Mil Harei," Salus proclaimed to the crowd, "is a murderer and an enemy to Karrigland. You had all better take heed."

Salus turned back toward Mil. "And your little jig, Harei, is quite up."

Mil looked up at Salus raising his cane across his chest and high above his shoulder. He could clearly view the brass stamped Seal of Sol-Kut on the handle and Salus' arm, which appeared remarkably muscular for a man of his age. The last thing Mil saw, was Salus' cane coming down on him.