Gladsong the Dagger

Gladsong

J. Wesley Hill

Wynan Thatch sat glaring into the fireplace, beckoning for it to consume him. Tears stained his thin face and matted his thick grey beard.

“Master,” the voice of some god of mischief echoed from the silver dagger, Gladsong, hanging from his belt. “You shouldn’t cry so much. This amount of stress isn’t healthy.”

Wynan sobbed and threw back another long gulp from his leather wineskin.

“Did you know that wine is literally poison?” The dagger gasped. “Master! You could get tumors! I insist that you stop drinking that wine this instant!”

Wynan heaved a disgruntled sigh and strapped the wineskin to his belt. He stood and yawned.

“Don’t get too close to the fire, master. You could burn yourself. Watch your step, it’s dark out. You should’ve eaten something! You’re getting skinny, Master. You look tired. You should get some sleep.”

His footsteps echoed through the hall above the inn as he trudged to his room. Without care or worry, he dropped his clothes and accessories to the floor and flopped onto the bed.

“Don’t worry, Master. I’ll keep a lookout.”

Wynan passed out almost immediately. Outside, dark shadows pooled in the alleyways. Figures of doom crept to the windows seeking to kill travelers for their purses.

“Eeeee! Master! Danger, Master Wynan!” The sleepy bard turned over and shoved the pillow over his head. The assassin outside curled up into a ball in the alley with a mostly eaten, moldy leg of mutton. “Oh… it’s just a beggar. Go back to sleep master.”

“Eeeee! Master! Fire! Danger! No… no wait, the innkeeper is just stoking the fireplace…”

“Eeeee! Master! I think the man in the next room is plotting to kill you! Get up! No, no wait. He was just thirsty. You can go back to sleep.”

“Eeeee! Master! Ratmen are swarming the city! They’re going to eat everyone alive! No, wait. It’s just a mouse in the kitchen. Ew. Don’t eat any of the bread, master.”

“Eeee! Master! Did you lock the window? I don’t think you did. I insist that you get up and lock it this instant before someone crawls through and tries to kill you.”

The poor man slid out of bed with dark circles sagging under his eyes. He took another gulp from the wineskin and slunk to the window. He opened it and stared into the dark alley below.

“Master, you need to sleep. And I told you to stop drinking that.”

He leaned over the edge, pleading to the cobblestones below to take him.

“Now master, we’ve been through this. I can only resurrect you once a month. If you keep intentionally dying, I have to wait for you to come back. I get lonely, master!”

Wynan sagged to the floor and buried his face in his hands. He tossed the cursed silver dagger aside and crawled toward the door.

“Master! Don’t leave me here! Remember that time you left me at the Dragonclaw Inn and the orc found me? I had to convince him to find you and try to kill you! He was successful, but I brought you back! I always find my way back to you!”

Wynan sighed and recovered the dagger before slogging back down the stairs.

“You’re up early, Sir” the fair haired bar maiden greeted him. “Would you like something to eat?”

“Yes, please,” Wynan’s voice was silk and honey.

The girl winked and fetched him some stew, a small loaf, and a pint of fine mead. “You must be a bard.”

Wynan nodded and set the bread aside. He tore into the stew like a starved wolf.

“Master, chew your food! Master, slow down! You’re going to choke! Oh, now look what you’ve done, you’re choking. The wench is screaming! Gods, her voice is awful. It’s not helping at all. Your face is turning purple. Careful when you fall down, Master. Don’t hit your head too hard or you’ll have a headache for days. Great, Master, see what you’ve done? Now I can’t use it again until next month. Are you happy now?”

“H-how…?” The bar maiden stared at Wynan in horror. The pitcher of mead she held had spilled all over her dress, but she wasn’t paying any attention. The bard had been raised from the dead and he didn’t even seem to notice.

“It’s the dagger,” Wynan sighed. He slumped over and buried his face in his arms. His dirty cotton shirt sleeves soaked through with new tears. “Damn thing won’t let me die.”

“Don’t cry, Master,” the dagger moaned. “This much stress isn’t good for your health.”

Pen Names

So, I've been thinking about a pen name for a long time, since it's important to choose a name to go with one's stories... among other reasons. I don't remember what they all are at the moment, but they're important.
Anyway, more to the point, I have a few ideas I wanna throw out there. Let me know what you think.

Robert Aaron
Robert Westley
W Aaron Roberts
Robert Jason

I'll add more when I think of them. Let me know if you have any ideas.

Doctor Smith

“You can come out now. I know you’re hiding. It’s okay, I have no weapons.”

The silk drapes by the window parted to reveal the assassin veiled in black. Doctor Smith stood tall with short dark hair. His face was long and bore a greying goatee which ended in a point. A thick red night robe complete with a warm silk scarf adorned this his shoulders.

He sighed and opened a globe on the side table by one of the several lounge chairs in his personal library. Inside was a mini bar. “Would you care for a drink? No? Well, before you kill me, at least let me explain what I’ve done. I need to get this off my chest. As the child of the man I murdered, I knew you would find me sooner or later. Have a seat, please.”

The assassin hesitated a moment before holstering his pistol. He remained standing with his arms crossed.

“Have it your way. It began years ago. This man paraded across town on a regular basis wreaking havoc on our fair city. Oh, he wasn’t the only one, but he was the best of them. His inventions caused devastation on a regular basis. Whole companies went under due to rebuilding costs. Insurance couldn’t keep up. All this unbridled mayhem is still pushing our country into another financial depression.”

Doctor Smith paused for a moment to pour himself a glass of brandy. The amber liquid matched the man perfectly; a harsh yet delicate drink that could only be consumed in small doses. This was a man of poise, a man who demanded respect.

He continued. “But, the important bit is all the people he killed. Every building destroyed by one of his crazy robots or one of his death rays resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people. For what? To get back at his nemesis? To purge the city of the unworthy? Most of the time, their kind have well understood motives. Your father was just reckless.”

The doctor sighed and took a seat nearby with the glass of brandy in his hand. Now that he was closer to the light, the assassin saw the dark bags under his eyes. There were deep wrinkles in his brow, not from age but from stress. A man of his early thirties should not be quite so grey.

“And so we come to just a few nights ago. Your father lay before me on a gurney, clothed in his garish costume and mask. He was facing one of his more powerful enemies that night. Several blocks had been obliterated from that combat. Wounded civilians were pouring into the hospital in droves. Being the best surgeon this side of the country, I was tasked to help your father.

“This man who was but a creature of chaos and destruction was now in my domain, helpless and under my complete control. I alone could decide whether he was to live or die.”

Dr. Smith leaned back and picked up a framed picture from the table next to him. The photo depicted a wedding between a much younger man in a rented tuxedo and a beautiful woman with chestnut colored hair. They smiled behind the glass with a glimmer of love in their eyes. “She died that night, you know. The same night your father did. She was working late at the Rathsberg Insurance office when it came crashing down from the spider robot thing. Just one of many deaths…

His hands shook as he replaced the picture. He picked up a polished wooden pipe and puffed thick clouds of noxious smoke as he lit it. “I hope you don’t mind. I’d like a smoke before I die. Where were we?

“As you know, I’m under oath to do everything in my power to save the life of whatever patient I’m charged with. It is my duty as a medical practitioner to treat every man, woman, and child exactly the same no matter their background. For the most part, we never know anything more than their name and medical history. But everyone knew exactly who he was.

“I had to make a decision, and believe me it wasn’t easy. Should I do my duty as a professional surgeon and save this man’s life? Or, should I purposefully make a critical mistake on the operating table and end the suffering caused by this one man? If I let him die, I would be saving countless lives.

“Of course, you know the answer. I made a mistake. The incision was just a hair too deep and his heart couldn’t take it. It was an extremely difficult procedure. Everyone knew the risks, and no one blamed me for it. I murdered your father and nobody knew.”

Dr. Smith raised his glass and gave the assassin a humorless smile. “Well, except for you of course, and probably just about anyone who knows me well enough to understand I don’t make mistakes.”

He swallowed the rest of his brandy and sighed. His grey-blue eyes stared at nothing as he leaned back in his heavy chair. “I’ve made my peace. I’m ready to die.”

It Begins

So, I've been writing short stories for years now, but I've been trying to find a way to share it with everyone. I've gone from DeviantArt down to less reputable sites like FurAffinity and even Fanfiction sites, trying to get some input.

Now, some of my more promising works I'll be posting on ebooks for a really really low price to see if I can get some money out of it, God knows I need it... But for now, I'd like to share some of my much smaller works after revision.

In the meantime, I'm following Joseph Inzirillo who is one of the writers in my Creative Writing class at Olympic College. I do recommend following his blog as well and seeing what he has to offer. He's working on a book by writing several chapters into short stories that will eventually become a novel. It seems like a novel idea to me. :p I may or may not continue on some of my stories, depending on how much of a following I get and whether or not you think it's interesting.

SO, I'm going to do a bit of revising on a story titled "Doctor Smith" and post it in a little while so you get an idea of what I'm working on.