The Staff of Naught Read Free

at his feet and then back to the door and then back at his feet again before giving out a large sigh and once again wrung his hands together.
    A creak from the door brought the thin man to his feet with a lurch and he took two quick strides towards it before he stopped and straightened a finely tailored cotton shirt and pulled down the bottom edges of a wool jacket. At that moment a roundish man with a massive head flanked by wide red tinged ears emerged from behind the door and glanced in the direction of the small man, “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting long Myris.”
    “No, no sir. Not long at all, it’s just that these sightings are increasing and the people are …” spat out the smaller one in one quick sentence not stopping to breath.
    “Hold on there, Myris,” said the heavy man and turned away from him back towards the room. “Come on into my office and tell me slowly.” With that he disappeared behind the door and Myris darted after him with quick motions of his little legs. The office appeared to be quite small as a massive redwood desk, a huge leather backed chair behind the desk, and a much smaller wooden chair with no arms in front of it took up a great deal of the total space. Off to the side on the wall stood the mounted head of a massive green scaled dragon next to several smaller heads of more mundane creatures like deer and bears. A shelf filled with parchment scrolls and old books dominated the wall opposite the trophies and a counter near the back of the room contained half a dozen glass bottles filled with liquids of various colors. The thick man stood by this last table a glass in one hand and a bottle in the other, “What will it be Myris?”
    “Mayor Shumba, please! There is an emergency; I have to tell you immediately.”
    “You’ve always been a bit high strung Myris, if you don’t object I’ll have one,” said the town mayor, who poured a generous amount of a greenish blue liquid into a tumbler, and brought it to his nose for a luxurious sniff. “The finest Halfling Tree Sap in the Five Counties,” he said before taking a long swallow from the glass, “Ahhhh.” Shumba then walked slowly behind the big desk and sat down in the chair that was so large it almost swallowed his considerable bulk. “I suppose this is about the skeletons rising and that fool Tanner spouting off in the town square yesterday afternoon.”
    “Mayor, oh mayor,” said Myris and once again wrung his hands together the fingers intertwined in an apparently intricate dance, “it’s all true. The dead are rising; we have reports from six separate witnesses in different parts of town.”
    The mayor yawned widely and put down his glass with a halfhearted sigh, “Have you confirmed any of the sightings yourself Myris?”
    “There hasn’t been time your honor,” replied the little man almost hopping up and down as he spoke. “It’s an emergency, your leadership is required!”
    “What would you have me do about these reports?”
    “Send in a team of warriors, alert the baron, call up the militia, act decisively to swat out this threat!”
    “And if it all turns out to be kids playing tricks with strings and bones?”
    “Your honor, six separate witnesses in town to confirm what Tanner already said. You know the merchant isn’t prone to exaggerating, he said there were thousands of the things on the march.”
    “Marching into the ocean where they were destroyed by waves is how his rant was reported to me by Lousa,” replied the mayor with a wave of hand showing off three golden rings two of them with massive gemstones embedded inside.
    “Why do you listen to that woman,” said Myris almost spitting out the words his face screwed up as if he just took a bite from a lemon. “She traipses around in those little dresses and you just do whatever she says.”
    “And your point is?” said the mayor who raised his eyebrows a wide grin across his face.
    Myris sighed loudly, “Well, never mind. There