mulluck

Last of the 4 part Tale from Saxnäs. 

The wizard stepped off its mount. Looking me straight in the eye like an ironically sad puppy, disappointed that I was still awake. I froze, I’m ashamed to admit, and my pupils expanded in fear. He took his time to walk over to me, waving back and forth with his weird bony shoulders. 

”You are the one.
This little toy that wander around here,
curious, peculiar. 
You watch the kids as they play,
you take your place as an observer. 

I’m a bit crazy, 
I admit,
but I’m still in the spot of my shit. 

You are in a huge mess,
trapped with masters,
paid to be less. 

I offer you to leave. 
This one time I give a special deal,
unique, friendly. 
Run on down the slopes over yonder,
don’t ruin my life I beg you. 

As a last idea, 
look into my eyes,
see this distorted face. 

I suffer in my service,
I’m a servant,
they are the burglars.”

A flash of thought went into my mind. That speech was terrible. Then as a bolt of lightning from a sunny sky I saw the axe of Korgan splitting the sad sight of a wizard in half. 

We ran through the camp as fast as we could. I thought at first we were in search of Felt to escape but as we turned a corner Korgan turned around and pushed my body up the wall. Fondling and kissing me. Shocked, I thought about my predicament. My travels with Korgan, Felt and the meeting with all the creatures around here had taught me something. I grabbed Korgans head with my hands, pushing my thumbs through his eyeballs. He screamed, I panicked, I kept pushing. He raised his axe trying to fend me off but missed and fell down in the snow. I ran. The whole village seemed to wake up around me. In a desperate attempt to cover my tracks I turned around, took three big steps and a final jump ending with planting my heels in the face of Korgan. I kept on stomping. With my shoes bloody and Korgan dead I felt my job there was done, more than done. No alarm set off, the village was relatively calm, but in the side of my eye I saw Felt. He turned his face down into the snow and the bloody mess down there. Then up to me. Then down. 

That was my calling card. Off I went.

It has been 15 years since I went to the mountain. Right when I came back I started this enterprise even though I was in terrible trauma at the time. I built this tavern with the sweat and pain of anxiety and that’s why I love it. I want you to bring one thought with you from this. You are champions! Now get out of my face and take care of the dishes… 



The asymmetric snow wizard

Part One of the four part wierdo fantasy tale "Quest 4 a Torso"

"Me and my companions met in the crooked tavern at the outskirts of the desert. Pinkish palm trees waved at us in the wind as we entered. It had been a long time since I had seen them. Korgan the Childish, Buck and Leon. I recently had the luck of acquiring a framed map from my dead grandson's inheritance. He had bought it at a flea market from a crippled accountant. Angry over the poor inheritance he had left me I tossed the silly picture in the wall, breaking the frame, and exposing the fancifull backside of the papyrus. Tucked in there was a horribly worn little pamflett. 

“Friends. Companions. This is it.” I threw the book on the tabletop with a slap. Buck, caught off guard since distracted by an attractive table neighbor, nearly fell off his chair. I looked around, making sure no one listened, and kept talking. 

“In this little trashy thing is the guide to find an extraordinary item. The yellow torso. It is truly the stuff of legends, would it be true it exists. Touch it with your palm and in an instance  your tummy will shrink, your pecs will bulge, your liver spots fall off your skin and your wrinkles flatten like the finest satin.” They all looked down on their aging sloppy features. “It’s the tool of youth I tell ya! There is a problem though. This torn piece of paper here will take us through the desert, passing the queen's lair and hopefully, should we make it alive, find the torso in the hut of an aging skeletal leech. We need to steal it from him. He held onto it for eons.” Leon opened his cookie hole “Who is this leech?” I leaned forward, “It’s name is Kushim.” I whispered. At the simple low utterance the table started shaking. Around us people sat, walked and stood in shock as the lights of the tavern flickered and suddenly the door opened. Blinded by a bright light we covered our faces and heard a tune increasing in strength while small rounded ghosts came dancing in across the establishments blemished wood boards..."      


Tavern Wraiths 

--- They live among the mountaintops ---

There had been no sign of the fox. Instead we had traversed up the frozen forests following slush-like streams just to enter a snow storm of absurde magnitude. Korgan and Felt were dragging their feet, I kept the banner high and walked up front. I closed my eyes for a second, when I opened them it was as if time stood still. All the snowflakes frozen, glittering in mid air. I could hear the sound of an enormous trumpet blasting through the mountaintops and as a spell the frozen flakes in front of my eyes turned to drops. They hovered all but a millisecond and then fell like a steamy summer rain. A clear mountain night was revealed to me. Millions of stars looked down on me through the veil of colorful phenomena in the sky. Korgan and Felt stopped and laughed. Felt spun around in a circle and fell down in the snow. Korgan began wrestling me in happiness despite my stern look and negative reception. As I was getting my mouth forcefully filled with snow Korgan suddenly stopped, “It is moving. The snow.” We stood up in seconds and looked around. There, in the snow, they slowly popped up. The people that live in the mountains. 

Korgan and Felt adapted quickly to the customs of the people of the mountain. Their childish sides were appreciated here and viewed as normal, even in between the two of them. Our initial fear of the people of the mountain had proven to be uncalled for. They lived like enlightened children here in a constant internal struggle managed by the snow wizard that lived somewhere among the peaks. They invited us to their messy cave village. An amazingly beautiful construction yet kept anything but clean. We ended up staying for years. Yes, years. I on my end couldn’t leave by myself, I had a contract to fulfill, even if I grew increasingly irritated with the small problems connected to immaturity that took place around me. In my boredom and frustration I ended up befriending a mountain animal that could speak. With this bewitched creature I spent my days. Trying to learn more of this place and the wizard as the springs would pass. 

The animal told of the fox. Existing as the soul of the people here. If one of them found themselves lost outside of the wizards reach they would call it to fill themselves with a short burst of complete adult agency, helping them with their decisions on whether to return or leave the community. It was that missing piece of their development, set free in this white fox. I started to notice among them more clearly this missing trait. They would make a choice, it would backfire, they would be surprised, they would lash out. A thought about the future did not exist. I also realized that this was a trait more common among my own peers then I had previously understood. 

In the evenings the wizard would call on the calming blue light in the sky to make us go to sleep. After the fourth spring I decided to stay up despite my tiredness. I walked the calm village looking at the people sleeping trying to figure out what I should do to free myself, and by association Korgan and Felt, from this place. Through the black night I saw a figure approaching riding a blanket supported by an invisible creature. I figured out all too late that this was the wizard approaching, watching over their herd.    

“Oh, one little pickle is awake??!” They burst out in excitement. 


They live among the mountaintops

One of a set of four collecting the full "Tales from Saxnäs". 

--- Springtime ---

Me and my companions had been frozen for ages in the barren landscape that surrounded Pipesmokers Rock. Our travels had put us through many perils and tests of psyche, as well as agility, but this is the area where we were put to a halt.

I’m a simple narrator. Short in stature and unimpressive in garments. Fat like a toad and horny as an eunuch. I stay in the background, observing, longing and collecting the life of the others in the group. My face has been distorted since childhood but I maintain a certain level of charismatic character. The others, two of them, are lovers. They don’t know I know but I have my ways of finding out. I stay close and feel their shame. It’s a dysfunctional love, hence the shame, that is based in exploring the roles closest at hand, their negative social habits and other psychological patterns that have a tendency to spin out of control. Maybe this is why we are here after all… 

It was right before the winter struck that we passed Pipesmokers Rock. The monks had warned us not to leave at this time but we didn’t listen. We just walked. Like zombies. Straight. And so we were frozen on the spot. First the big toe, then the rest of the gang of five. Then the kneecaps became hubs of immobility spreading across all of the body. Last the head, my charming disfigured head, became ice. They had said the rock would grow cold soon, just not how soon! Those feeble minded, sloppy, piss monks.   

Why this? This stupid trek? I had been thrown out of my position as stylist for the Knights of Despair and needed work. Those other two, they wanted to fix “it” (their relationship) and needed my help as a guide of sorts. In hindsight I think I was hired as a third wheel/punching bag. 

They had heard about the fox living around here. Supposedly this little pelt creature carried the sins of the psyche in it’s bag. Everything that made you stay a whiny baby. A tale for children few could even spend a minute listening to. Somehow it resonated with them… Maybe another sign of their internal negative patterns… Silly hope for them I think. An opening into escaping from each other and into their individual spring of self growth. 
Ironically we had been frozen here until that very real spring hit. Little curveballs of water dripped down from the flower petals and just as fast got sucked up by the otherworldly steam that spewed out the rock at the turn of the season.

My body felt healed and newborn as melting water fell out of my eye sockets. Korgan and Felt, those were the names you see, where teasing me of course. Saying I, “was crying like a toddler hit with a Pillnut tree pie right in the fontanelle.”. Laughs were shared in between them as if they had forgot they had stood frozen here for… no one knows how long! Aroused by their laughter they started cuddling and kissing and soon enough were all up in each other right in front of me as if I were a perverted royal having perverted lunch entertainment. Just as quick as it had started it ended in fighting and screaming. I turned around and put all our clothes on the Pipesmokers Rock to heat them after the cold meltwater's persistent icy moisture. 

With the fight continuing in the background I spaced out and looked into the distance. The white peaks, the home of the fox, were now in front of us. We just had to cross a little piece of frozen water. I got a chill down my spine. Reminding me of the fear I felt for this trip. It could be the end, and I was only in it for the gags. I cursed my foolishness and watched the duo fight naked in the grass. Slapping their skins together.        


Pipesmokers Rock

One of a set of four collecting the full "Tales from Saxnäs". 

--- A word of advice ---

Over the endless crust up in the absent mountains it runs and plays. Secretive human features, or so I heard. I never saw it myself, this white innocent devil with an invisible backpack carrying the sins of the people that inhabited this area for ages. Be careful as you traverse onwards looking for it. It knows how to trick. It knows how to lay traps. It’s ways with smile and buffoonery to attract your caress are not to be trusted. 

I met a local once, he was gettin’ drunk on sap from the misfit trees around here. He told me the song of the little rascal and how it should be sung. Unfortunately I can not imitate the way sounds came out of this mages’ neck. I tell you, he gargled the noises out through the thick intoxicating sap while making sure not to breath through any other holes in his head. Either way, you must be bored. It went like this:

“Mischief paws on pinned ice lawns.
Skip the rocks on mountain fountains. 
Gossipin pup is popin up,
through the cast layed down on earth. 

Anywhere but here and there. 
Always near is natures’ heir.
Listens close to all your sins,
and draws you closer to draw you in.

This is what they say of me. 
Still I show ways to pity thee. 
Remember me when spring comes knockin,
I’m the guard of all things locked in.”

Thread carefully, you are in its domain very soon. I wish for you all to be well when you are forced to sing this silly song.     



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