Trade Secrets

Midland winters aren't known for being cold, but their nights are still the chilliest of the year. So it is that we find a particular Master Jeuni Huros cursing harshly as he stumbles homewards, ranting about how damn cold it is and how the very sun itself is freezing over. Jeuni, twenty-seven years old, is not insane—he has just had an excess of drink. Were he not piss drunk, he would not be staggering around blindly and he would not run head-on into the man he does. A man who is roughly seven feet tall and clad in a heavy gray cloak, height and garb unusual in Jeuni's town. A man who has very little experience in the field of being ignored by those who bumped into him. Expecting the usual sheepish apology, he is amused when Jeuni, almost two feet shorter and smelling of hops, stumbles past him, yelling his head off about the ice-ridden sky.

* * *

The two met again the next evening, this time inside the tavern whence Jeuni had stumbled the night before. It was in this tavern—one of over a dozen of its kind in town—that Jeuni worked as a juggler, as advertised by the posters plastered on every storefront. The posters didn't attract a large audience. Those who could read were offended by the posters' misspelled and ungrammatical text, penned by the not-quite-literate drunk, and those who couldn't were offended by the aesthetically lacking sketch of Jeuni's face. The posters were less winning than the smile Jeuni's sketch was supposed to portray, but, using them, the large man had located Jeuni's workplace.

Jeuni had no recollection of their first meeting.

In fact, he didn't even notice the huge man enter the tavern on the day of their second encounter, so occupied was he in his drink. His thoughts were not in the rowdy tavern. They wandered between three topics: how best to drink himself into oblivion, an easy way to make quick cash (with which to pay for drinking himself into oblivion), and learning how to cheat at Keys (a game at which he might easily make quick cash, with which to pay for drinking himself into oblivion). He should have been pondering other things—namely, his performance that was scheduled to start within the hour—but, as usual, the lure of alcohol had drawn him into an alternate reality where nothing but alcohol mattered. He was so lost in fantasies of cash and liquor raining down upon him that he was plucked from the bar by his irate manager, who proceeded to give him a talking-to behind the stage.

Unfortunately for the gray-cloaked man, this plucking occurred seconds before he could reach the juggler. Unfortunately for Jeuni, the entrance of this formidable giant scared away most of the tavern customers, many of whom had been about to empty their pockets to witness the juggling act.

The large man seated himself at the bar, looking around the dank room as a mender might inspect a sick ward. His eyes, a bright gold, gleamed like those of an eagle and his thick black hair resembled that of a great wolf. The bartender, a stout man with a shoulder span about half that of the giant's, moved with frightened deliberation as he prepared a drink for this new customer.

"I—I hope that this will do," stuttered the bartender, averting his eyes as he placed a large glass on the counter.

"Thank you," smiled the giant, his voice ringing like church bells and death at the same time. Commanding like the voice of a king yet humble like that of the lowliest peasant, his voice was a clash of every sound men had ever heard and many that they might never hear. The roar of a lion, the grinding of a dragon's teeth, the burning of the oceans, the flooding of the sky. The bartender stood in awe as this voice reverberated in his mind, its tone every tone.

After some struggling, the bartender uttered, "it's on the house."

The huge man bowed his head respectfully. He had just started sipping his drink when the curtains of the stage were drawn and Jeuni Huros strolled into view, three wicked knives in his left hand. The few patrons who remained in the tavern cheered at his appearance. They, already the drunkest of the lot when the giant entered the tavern, were eager for blood.

Jeuni, not fully sober, was worried that he might satisfy the drunks' desire. He just knew it—he was going to end up with at least one knife stuck in him. He hoped that that blasted mender was up to the task, because he sure as hell didn’t want to go home and nurse a wounded shoulder. Especially not at night. Damned forsaken nights of ice and death. That thought in mind, Jeuni began his act.

He flung the first knife into the air, and followed its path with narrowed eyes, smiling as it glimmered in the tavern lamplight. It circled upward, slowing as it neared the ceiling, and then it came back to Jeuni, landing hilt-first in his right hand. He winked expressively at his audience, keeping his focus on the knives, and then he tossed the two that remained in his left hand. As they descended, sending light flickering in all directions, he took aim and knocked one of them aside producing and chucking a fourth knife. With a well-timed cartwheel, he swept across the stage, gracefully catching each knife as it approached the stage. Standing straight, he extended his hands: they were empty.

The drunks cheered vigorously, spilling grog from their tankards onto the floor and each other. As one they chanted, "more! More! More!"

Jeuni obliged them, producing a long stream of knives and sending it into the air like a whip, cracking it once, twice, then calmly holding out his arm as knife after knife retreated into his sleeve. Figuring he had been flashy enough, Jeuni began strolling around the stage, juggling three knives with ease as he moved. The drunks were elated, but they wanted more.

The juggler worked a few dance steps into his walk, then a back flip, then an elongated hand stand, all the while keeping the knives cycling through the air.

Jeuni knew he was near his limit. Everything was going smoothly, but he couldn't handle much more. If he further increased the complexity of his act, he knew he would trip and hurt himself, and then he would need that mender to patch him up. The thought irked him—the medical service fee always came out of his paycheck. He simplified his stroll and stepped up to the front of the stage. The audience jeered at the obviously cautious move, and Jeuni empathized with them. They were in the tavern drinking themselves silly on the cheapest of rotgut to see him bumble and bleed, and he wanted to liven up his reputation by delivering. Still, if it was a question of the money for another five gins or losing that money to repair an injury he didn't need to incur, the path was obvious. One of Jeuni's mottos was 'always err on the side of liquor,' though he didn't really consider it erring.

If only the healing service were complimentary, Jeuni thought, I'd be able to satisfy my customers. Stingy bastard, that manager... and with that thought, Jeuni made his first mistake.

He had reduced the complexity of his act such that he thought he could spare a passing glance at the crowd, and he did. Jeuni saw the giant and this time he was not drunk enough to disregard the man's size and appearance. At first Jeuni told himself that he had had more to drink than he had imagined—there was no way a human could be so large or look so bestial. Squinting, he took another long look at the beast-like man, and this time he wasn't so convinced that it was alcohol playing with his sight.

The attention that examining the giant took away from his juggling was enough to trip Jeuni up, and he missed a step in his stroll. One of the three knives he had been juggling simply clattered off the stage floor, but the other two embedded themselves in his small body. He crumpled to his knees, gritting his teeth. The patrons cheered wildly. This was it, this was what they wanted. There was no harm in it: the mender would heal the performer in an instant. At least, he was supposed to. Unfortunately for Jeuni, the mender who normally healed him should he slip up was the selfsame bartender who remained silently fascinated by the giant's bestial splendor.

Between the patrons jeering and laughing, Jeuni deciding that it was better to suffer than to lose those five shots and thus that he would not cry for aid, and the bartender being too enthralled to offer any, the only one able to help the juggler was the one who had indirectly caused the injury. The giant stood hurriedly, knocking over two barstools in the process, and waved his arms above his head.

“He’s bleeding all over the place!” he cried out. “Someone help him!”

At his command, the bartender snapped out of his state of inaction and the knives were pulled from Jeuni by invisible hands. The juggler's wounds sewed themselves together and the gray-cloaked man breathed a sigh of relief. The patrons, briefly distracted by the display, went back to celebrating Jeuni's injury by drenching themselves in grog. Disappointment sunk in as Jeuni realized that this handful of near-penniless drunks was the only audience he had. He wondered where his original crowd had gone, and why they couldn't have hung around long enough to shower him with drinking money.

* * *

"What a pain in the ass," muttered Jeuni before downing a tall glass of gin. "There was such a good turnout before you showed up, too." Bleary-eyed, he fiddled with his empty glass for a moment before signaling for a refill. The tavern was empty save for the juggler, the bartender, the giant, and a pile of unconscious drunks in front of the stage.

"Nothing more for you, sir?" asked the bartender cautiously, looking up into the gray-cloaked man's golden eyes.

"Thank you, no."

"Well?" asked Jeuni grouchily before pouring more of the foul liquid down his throat. He hated Western alcohol on a principle he couldn't remember, but the stuff at least pretended to be drinkable. Not like he would be able to afford anything else for a while, he figured. With a limited budget, he would be forced to accustom himself to cheap booze.

"Well what?"

"Damn it, man," hissed Jeuni, "first you show up here and scare the pants off my audience, and now you're sitting here watching me drink! What is it that you want?" Having finished his refill, he slammed the empty glass down on the counter.

"Drunk already?" the man asked, dismissing Jeuni's angry words with a scornful snort.

"The hell's that supposed to mean? You don't want me to drink? Fine job you're doing of stopping me, look, I'm reduced to this Western piss and soon—"

"Forget it, Master Huros. I'm leaving. I have business with you, but I suppose I'll find you another time, when you're better disposed."

"But—" Jeuni was cut off as his interlocutor rose abruptly, once again knocking over a barstool. Stopping only to drop some coins on the counter, the giant strode over to the door and stepped outside, slamming it behind him.

"Hell of a guy," murmured the bartender. Jeuni grimaced at the door as he signaled for a third drink behind his back. The bartender obeyed quickly, placing a fresh glass of the freshly-insulted Western gin in front of the juggler. Despite being thoroughly miffed, Jeuni couldn't help but wonder what the man with the exotic hair and eyes had wanted of him.

No one had sought him out since the last time he'd been sick, ten months back—that was a winter night to remember—when his manager had dragged him out of bed, across town, and onto the tavern stage, much to the delight of his show's fans. In fact, the only person to ever look for me anywhere was my manager. Years back, he initiated a one-person strike to protest his low wages, and his manager had bodily hauled him off the cobblestones outside the tavern and onto the stage inside. Once there, Jeuni had figured he might as well perform. He never received a raise again after that incident.

But this giant—he clearly wasn't after Jeuni's juggling talent in order to make a profit in a seedy tavern. And while it was clear to Jeuni what the giant didn't want, it was not at all clear what he could possibly want, and the small juggler became curious.

This curiosity gnawed at Jeuni the entire time he spent slowly sipping his second refill. When he finished, a long belch signaled that he could hold back his curiosity no longer. He had to find the giant as soon as possible. He stood and grabbed his bloodstained cloak from the stool next to him.

"Put it against my earnings," he said, tapping the counter next to where the giant had left his coins. The bartender nodded. Donning his cloak and fastening various loose buckles about his garments, Jeuni dashed outside with the utmost of inebriated grace. It wasn't hard to locate the giant—he towered over the locals, and gave some buildings a run for their money—but catching up to him was another matter. His legs were long and he moved quickly, the market square crowds parting in awe before him as he headed toward the residential area. Jeuni ran to catch up, ducking around closing sales booths and end-of-day hagglers, weaving left and right as he sought to reach the giant.

Jeuni followed the the subject of his curiosity out of the bustling market square and into the town outskirts, a place littered with shoddy homes, abandoned hovels repurposed as public toilets, and lots vacant but for an abundance of trash. It was in this place that the gray-cloaked man stopped moving. Jeuni stopped running as well, standing a few yards behind the giant, looking around for what might have caused him to stop moving. The cool evening air refreshed him and drove the spirits from his mind as he scanned the area, and he noticed that he could see his own abode, a dilapidated one-room shack. The realization that this stranger had led him to his own home unsettled him immediately.

"Master Huros."

"How did you know I was following you?" demanded Jeuni. He had used every trick he knew to follow the man silently—even when wading through the crowds of merchants and peddlers, he had not made a sound. Even running as quickly as he could, his feet had landed softly, and he had controlled his breath to keep from panting.

"I knew you would follow me, so there was that." The giant turned to face juggler. "But I could also smell the West in your breath. And the blood from your shoulders wounds. And the residue from the bartender's spell."

"Your sense of smell is wolf-like," breathed the juggler. "And you don't look like any man I've ever seen. The legends tell of creatures like you." Jeuni focused on the giant's eyes, on their golden shine. His conviction grew. Those weren't the eyes of a human. "Beast-men who traded their humanity for the aspect of an animal."

"Nothing so extreme—I'd say I have a mite of humanity left in me." The giant smiled and flung back his cloak, revealing an immense suit of blue lacquered plate-mail, lined with white fur. "I'm just a traveler, a real nobody next to you, Master Huros. Why don't you tell me how you manage to do that juggling act every day? Why don't you tell me where all those knives come from?"

"A hidden belt, of course," Jeuni replied hastily. "It's a trick."

"Quite some trick, that non-existent belt of yours," laughed the self-proclaimed traveler. "Let me ask you something else, then—do you drink yourself halfway to death in order to suppress your powers? It's a foolish plan, I must say."

"What powers?" Jeuni asked, opting to put more effort into seeming suspicious than into feigning innocence. He felt he had a better chance of pressing this man into revealing something than he had of hiding anything himself.

"I think you know that quite well," shrugged the giant, dropping his cloak and reaching for a hilt at his hip. He unsheathed his sword, longer than the juggler was tall, and leveled it at Jeuni. The blade was immense, easily five and a half inches wide at its widest and tapering down to a vicious point at the end. For Jeuni, it was no question at all that this giant was a beast-man—no human, not even one blessed with extraordinary height, could lift that much steel with one hand. Jeuni tried and failed to remember the last time a man had pointed a weapon at him. The absurdity of the situation, topped only by the absurd size of the weapon in question, caused Jeuni to burst out laughing.

The only words he could think to offer alongside his laughs were, "you use that to dig flowers?"

"Sometimes, yes." And with that, the giant charged, raising his sword and preparing to bring it crashing down upon Jeuni's head. The juggler dodged to the side not too nimbly, almost tripping over his own foot—the alcohol still held him, at least partially. The giant turned and charged again, and again Jeuni sidestepped in the nick of time. "Don't just run around in circles, Master Huros. I know you're capable, so retaliate." The giant's words were commands Jeuni could not disobey. As Jeuni ran, his hands disappeared under his cloak, fidgeting with various straps hidden about his garb.

"I'm just a juggler," he yelled at the giant as he jumped clear of another swing. The blade dug deep into the cobblestones. "I don't know what you want from me!" Even as he said this, he was obeying the command to retaliate, readying his own weapons. Before he could be charged again, his arms shot out from under his cloak, flinging minuscule objects at his opponent. Flashes of blue surrounded the giant as Jeuni's tiny projectiles circled around him and boomeranged back into the juggler's hands.

"Magical tripwires won't be very effective," sighed Jeuni's opponent, coming to a stop and standing still momentarily.

"Tripwires?" asked Jeuni with a barely suppressed chuckle. "Magical? Damn it—I told you I'm just a juggler. Just a juggler—a bit of a drunk fool, perhaps, but really all I am is a juggler. This is metal, a real strong wire. Take another step towards me and I'll tighten it. You'll be chopped meat."

"Interesting," murmured the giant, and then he ran forward despite the juggler's warning.

"Sorry, man," hissed Jeuni as he pulled his hands together and felt the wires grow taut, their grasp on the giant tightening. Then the tension in his weapons dissipated and his hands relaxed. The expected sound of flesh tearing never reached Jeuni's ears. Instead, he heard the sound of snapping. The juggler whistled as he realized that his wire had lost to whatever material composed the giant's plate-mail.

"Why are you apologizing?" asked the giant as he loomed over the juggler, unharmed and sword raised high above his head. The blade came down just as Jeuni regained his composure and smiled. A deafening crash emanated from the cobblestones, obliterated by the force behind the blow, and a dull thunk—presumably from the weapon entering Jeuni's head—gratified the giant. Dust blew up from under the cobblestones, obscuring his view, and when it cleared he was surprised to see that his blade had yet to draw blood. It was embedded in a large wooden door, taller than he was and easily a foot thick. The juggler was nowhere in sight and, try as he might, the giant could not pull his weapon out from the wood in which it was stuck. "A door, eh?"

"Who would've thought?" laughed the juggler, reappearing in a flash between the door and the giant, a reluctant grin on his face.

"So you keep things of this size tucked in that hidden belt of yours," smiled the giant, nodding appreciatively.

"I still don't know who the hell you are and I'm afraid I never will, Mister Beast-man. You've gotten yourself in one hell of a bind, sir. Ruin my day, think too much about my routine—not too smart. But damn, you sure gave me a shock with that get-up of yours."

"What are you saying?" asked the giant, still struggling against the door in a futile attempt to recover his sword. "I see, I can't pull it out. So this is the end, then?"

"I can't be out of my job, sir," shrugged the juggler, deftly ducking as the giant threw a punch his way. "My trade secrets must never be revealed." With this, he bowed and flung an arm skyward. A thousand glittering birds took flight from a flap of his cloak, headed straight for the rising moon, their only obstacle the giant. Jeuni lowered his head further in order to avoid the unpleasant sensation of blood spraying in his face. "The curtain falls."

An empty suit of plate-mail clattered off the blood-soaked cobblestones.