Free Hero for Hire by C. B. Pratt

heaped up scrolls just beyond him. “Anything interesting?” I asked, jerking open the curtains. I saw that the one I’d ripped hadn’t been repaired yet.
    “Yes, quite a bit. Of course, I can’t read all of it. I think there’s some Egyptian here and maybe some Chaldean characters as well.”
    The fresh air drove off the memories. Temas, blinking in the sunlight, seemed less the eldritch inheritor of a black fate and more a young man with an air of responsibility that sat oddly on his shoulders. Remembering my youthful visits from the Hangover God, I could sympathize. He stood up like an old man, all hinges and creaks.
    “Have you eaten?” he asked, fulfilling his duty to a guest. Or was I his servant? Heroes for hire occupy a strange half-world when it comes to etiquette. Still, Temas was a gentleman.
    “Yes. Have you?”
    A slight tint of pale green washed into his complexion. “There was this cold porridge....”
    “Yeah, I saw it. I think I would rather face those things from last night again than eat that.”
    The boy hastened to the balcony, the same that I had found so useful for the same purpose. After a few distressing minutes, the king called me.
    “Sire?” I stepped out to join him.
    “I think you’d better tell me what did happen last night. There are some very strange tales flying about and I must know the truth of what I myself saw.”
    “These scrolls are most interesting,” the scholar said, appearing in the doorway. “If I may study them further?”
    Temas nodded his permission. “But stay and listen to what Eno has to say. The incidents of last night are so peculiar that I can hardly accept all I saw myself.”
    Phandros’ cool eyes studied me. “I have no doubt, sire, that Eno the Thracian comported himself entirely in your interests. There are strange portents and powers at work in this land but they will never overcome men of valor. I will study these papers and guard the way so you may speak freely and without interruption.”
    I felt as if someone had hung a golden chain around my neck. On the one hand, I was grateful for the compliments, which I felt Phandros did not hand out like sprigs of mint on a festival day. On the other hand, however, I now felt even more closely bound to the King of Leros and his problems. Even if I’d wanted to, how could I sail away without satisfying the terms of my contract?
    After I filled him in on all the details of last night’s adventures, reserving only my discovery of the harpy’s nest and my guesses about his father, Temas stood swaying in the sunlight, his hands pressed to his eyes. “We are cursed, indeed. How can such things be?”
    “We live in a time of mysteries,” I said, not wanting to share my surmises till I had a chance to think things through. “The Gods work their will as they see fit.”
    “What God could do such horrible things? What I saw last night...the pity of their faces, faces I knew well. My father. Those guards, men I knew and fenced with. And the poor women.”
    "It's over now, my lord. Whatever caused it won't happen again."
    "How can you be sure? If they walk again tonight, everyone will leave the island. I might as well abandon the palace to Eurytos right now."
    "Nausicaa is dead. It was working through her, whatever it was, and that doorway is shut. Permanently."
    “I pray so. What will you do now?”
    I rubbed my bristly chin thoughtfully and caught myself starting to scratch. “I’d like a bath and a shave. Then I should pay a visit to my friends waiting in the harbor.”
    “I’ll go with you. If I and my household must flee...”
    “Oh, Jori will take you, for a price.” I should have told him then, I suppose, that I’d seen the harpy, that I had a feather from it on my person, and that I knew where it nested. I knew I should and even got so far as opening my mouth when I noticed Temas looking at me with extra intensity in his young eyes.
    “Do you...do you think I should grow a beard?”
    In the