'Sure', he said.
'Freilich', he said.
'Of course it has to be magic. What else can it be?'
The mysterious customer, still standing in front of the counter, unaffected by the heat that aided his melting into an unsightly pile of cheese in front of her, turned the 'it' over in her hands. Her face was hidden, but her nimble fingers seemed bemused.
'Reallye?', she said.
'Da, really.', he replied. He didn't quite know what tone to take with her. In his line of work, he had had to deal with a number of women before. That number being five. Okay, fine, three. But he had gotten through those without being slapped, stolen from, spit upon, set on fire, or turned into a frog waiting for a kiss from a true love that didn't exist. Surviving, while not exactly the best recipe for boosting confidence, did help kick it up the hill a bit.
He wondered, looking at her well woven cloak, with its discreet golden threading, and the impressively elegant wooden cane she used, but didn't seem to need, what their origins were. Wooden sticks, he knew, were rather hard objects to impart a refined air to. She should, by all intents and purposes, be ridiculously rich. But the unfettered wealthy did not impart such intense scrutiny to trinkets. Heck, it should've been his lucky day. She should've just purchased, nay, appropriated a quarter of his shop. It was all junk anyway. But instead, she seemed to have no eye for aught but the mangled key that she kept turning over and over, as if she expected it to jump up and do a trick for her.
He was wondering if he should break the silence with yet another discreet reminder of their mortality, and that they should probably complete their transaction before they died of starvation, or the plague, or yet another publicity scheme thought of by their increasingly erratic liege-lord. But she looked up, and he caught his first glimpse of her eyes, framed by locks of her dark hair.
They were brown. Not the brown, though, that most normal folks had, but an intelligent brown, one that weighed, calculated, and gave off a hundred different meanings with a hundred different hues, with a twinkle of hidden merriment that lurked beneath. He decided that whatever he wanted to say, was not worth it. She spoke, in a low, lilting voice that would have been a song were it not for the words,
'Hwa bealucræft, galdorcwide, wiccecræeft, or dreócræft numol, þéos keye?'
He struggled with that. He hadn't heard the old tongue being spoken so fluently in a while, perhaps it was just the new tongue being murdered. Perhaps not. He shook his head, trying to clear the bells and chimes of wonder and alarm ringing in them, and concentrated on the words instead.
'O' scínlæ', he said, for he was now sure that was what she was, a sorceress. A real live one, apparently not on the run either, for she seemed not in any kind of hurry. 'The drýlác, the sorcery on this key I know not, it came into my hands through a quirk of fate, nothing more, and all I knew of it, you now do. If you want it, take it. There ain't no instruction manual included, I'm afraid. Not a lock that I could find to fit it into.'
Slightly mollified by his own diatribe, he continued, 'It does seem to be a rather odd key, though. I couldn't straighten it out, nor melt it down into slag, and that alone is enough to confirm that it has to be magical, and a strong one at that. That alone prompted me to not mess around with it anymore. Well, that, and the inscription near the top.'
She listened patiently, the ghost of a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. She glanced at the inscription, and told him, in perfectly good lower tongue, 'I'll take it. How much would you like for it?'
He grinned back, now this, he could work with. 'Whatever you feel like giving, m'lady', he said.
'Well then, this should serve you well, should you figure out how to use it', she said, dropping a pouch on the counter, and smoothly scooping up the key. By the time he yelled that he didn't accept barter, she was no longer there, her swooshing skirts but a memory, were it not for the dull leather pouch on the countertop.
He opened it and looked inside, and removed an egg. An effing egg. Well, looked like he'd be having an omelette for breakfast tomorrow, he mused, thinking of that saying, how'd it go, 'when life gives you eggs...'
Outside, much farther away from the shop than a normal person would've been able to walk, or even run, she sat under the shade of an old tree, a gentle breeze ruffling the grass, and looked at the key, and smiled. The inscription read,
'dréam on oþ dréams cymst sóþ.'
'Freilich', he said.
'Of course it has to be magic. What else can it be?'
The mysterious customer, still standing in front of the counter, unaffected by the heat that aided his melting into an unsightly pile of cheese in front of her, turned the 'it' over in her hands. Her face was hidden, but her nimble fingers seemed bemused.
'Reallye?', she said.
'Da, really.', he replied. He didn't quite know what tone to take with her. In his line of work, he had had to deal with a number of women before. That number being five. Okay, fine, three. But he had gotten through those without being slapped, stolen from, spit upon, set on fire, or turned into a frog waiting for a kiss from a true love that didn't exist. Surviving, while not exactly the best recipe for boosting confidence, did help kick it up the hill a bit.
He wondered, looking at her well woven cloak, with its discreet golden threading, and the impressively elegant wooden cane she used, but didn't seem to need, what their origins were. Wooden sticks, he knew, were rather hard objects to impart a refined air to. She should, by all intents and purposes, be ridiculously rich. But the unfettered wealthy did not impart such intense scrutiny to trinkets. Heck, it should've been his lucky day. She should've just purchased, nay, appropriated a quarter of his shop. It was all junk anyway. But instead, she seemed to have no eye for aught but the mangled key that she kept turning over and over, as if she expected it to jump up and do a trick for her.
He was wondering if he should break the silence with yet another discreet reminder of their mortality, and that they should probably complete their transaction before they died of starvation, or the plague, or yet another publicity scheme thought of by their increasingly erratic liege-lord. But she looked up, and he caught his first glimpse of her eyes, framed by locks of her dark hair.
They were brown. Not the brown, though, that most normal folks had, but an intelligent brown, one that weighed, calculated, and gave off a hundred different meanings with a hundred different hues, with a twinkle of hidden merriment that lurked beneath. He decided that whatever he wanted to say, was not worth it. She spoke, in a low, lilting voice that would have been a song were it not for the words,
'Hwa bealucræft, galdorcwide, wiccecræeft, or dreócræft numol, þéos keye?'
He struggled with that. He hadn't heard the old tongue being spoken so fluently in a while, perhaps it was just the new tongue being murdered. Perhaps not. He shook his head, trying to clear the bells and chimes of wonder and alarm ringing in them, and concentrated on the words instead.
'O' scínlæ', he said, for he was now sure that was what she was, a sorceress. A real live one, apparently not on the run either, for she seemed not in any kind of hurry. 'The drýlác, the sorcery on this key I know not, it came into my hands through a quirk of fate, nothing more, and all I knew of it, you now do. If you want it, take it. There ain't no instruction manual included, I'm afraid. Not a lock that I could find to fit it into.'
Slightly mollified by his own diatribe, he continued, 'It does seem to be a rather odd key, though. I couldn't straighten it out, nor melt it down into slag, and that alone is enough to confirm that it has to be magical, and a strong one at that. That alone prompted me to not mess around with it anymore. Well, that, and the inscription near the top.'
She listened patiently, the ghost of a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. She glanced at the inscription, and told him, in perfectly good lower tongue, 'I'll take it. How much would you like for it?'
He grinned back, now this, he could work with. 'Whatever you feel like giving, m'lady', he said.
'Well then, this should serve you well, should you figure out how to use it', she said, dropping a pouch on the counter, and smoothly scooping up the key. By the time he yelled that he didn't accept barter, she was no longer there, her swooshing skirts but a memory, were it not for the dull leather pouch on the countertop.
He opened it and looked inside, and removed an egg. An effing egg. Well, looked like he'd be having an omelette for breakfast tomorrow, he mused, thinking of that saying, how'd it go, 'when life gives you eggs...'
Outside, much farther away from the shop than a normal person would've been able to walk, or even run, she sat under the shade of an old tree, a gentle breeze ruffling the grass, and looked at the key, and smiled. The inscription read,
'dréam on oþ dréams cymst sóþ.'
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