Free The Giant-Slayer by Iain Lawrence

embers in the fireplace and made them gleam and crackle. The last traveler had departed for the south an hour earlier, so the fire was near its end. The Woman was upstairs, cleaning the emptied rooms.
    Fingal looked up from the bar. “Are you going north, sir?” he asked.
    The old man didn’t speak. The cloak covered him fromhead to toe, while his face was hidden in the shadows of his hood. He came into the parlor with a heavy step that sounded like the clopping of a horse.
    There was snow on his shoulders, on the top of his hood, and it fell away as he crossed the parlor with that curious sound:
clop, clop, clop
. He walked right up to the bar and lifted a foot to the brass rail. He was wearing leather boots with wooden soles.
    “You’ll want to tip the babby now,” said Fingal, nodding toward the cradle. He gave it a poke that set the coins sloshing inside. Jimmy made happy, muttering sounds. “It brings fortune, you see. The more you give, the more you receive, if I can offer some advice.”
    “I do not seek advice,” said the old traveler. “I want only a fire, a drink, and a bowl of soup, all three as hot as you can make them.”
    “Yes, sir,” said Fingal, peering into the dark shadows of the traveler’s hood. He could see a chin that was bristled with white hairs, an eyebrow as thick as rope. “You do have the means of payment?” he said.
    Above them, the Woman was moving from room to room, carrying her bucket with a clatter and creak. The old traveler shook the last bits of snow from his shoulders. He reached into his sleeve and pulled out a small leather pouch. “Here is the means of my payment,” he said.
    The pouch made no sound when it touched the bar. There was no jingle of silver, no rattle of gold. “Why, it’s empty!” said Fingal.
    “Not at all.”
    “Then what’s inside it?”
    “The answer to your dreams.”
    “Bah!” Fingal snatched up the little bag before the man could say another word. He crushed it in his fist. “Look there, you old fool,” he said. “I can see there’s nothing in it.”
    “Your eyes deceive you,” said the traveler. The shadows moved in his hood as he shifted his head. There was a hint of hooked nose, of pox-scarred cheeks, of blackened lips. “That pouch contains anything you can imagine. Unless, of course, you imagine too much.”
    “Bah!” said Fingal again. “What do you mean by that?”
    “It’s a matter of fair exchange,” said the traveler patiently. “I will pay well for my meal. But if you ask too much, you get nothing.”
    Fingal laughed. It seemed that no matter what he did he was going to get nothing. But as he pushed the purse across the bar, a phrase came into his mind, words spoken by his mother fifty years before.
Flat as a Wishman’s pouch
. He could hear her saying it, and the memory suddenly triggered another.
Never wish for a Wishman
. He had thought, then, that it was nonsense. And in all the time gone by, he hadn’t changed his mind.
    Now he frowned. “Are you a Wishman?”
    “I am,” said the traveler.
    “You bestow wishes?”
    “I do.”
    Fingal leaned on the bar, nearly overcome by surprise. “I didn’t know that Wishmen existed,” he said.
    “Once, you didn’t doubt it,” said the Wishman.
    “I was a child.” Fingal looked suspiciously at the oldman, at his worn cloak and warty hands. “Can you bestow wishes on yourself?” he asked.
    “Of course.”
    “Aha!” Fingal held up a finger, as though he had bettered the traveler. “Then why do you walk in such rags?”
    “I choose to,” said the Wishman.
    “Why are you not young and handsome?”
    “If you cannot explain that yourself, then your wishes are wasted, my friend.” The traveler leaned forward. “Now, please, I would like my brandy.”
    There was a keg right behind the bar, but Fingal didn’t want to serve watery brandy to a Wishman. He went down to the basement instead, and brought up a glass as yellow as amber. He warmed it over the red