Tag: The Cook For Any Price

(Ten-and-a-half printed pages; the longest Prosatio Silban tale so far, and though it’s the third I’ve written, it’s actually the first one in narrative order. If you’re new to these, here are the (much shorter) preface and introduction. Enjoy.)

IT IS MUSIC. AND IT is Time. But mostly, it is Love.

Harpsong and drumbeat whirl through the broad moons-lit hollow like a flight of bright starlings air-dancing over a rain-pocked lake.

In a hollow atop a vast cliff squat two robe-wrapped figures: intent, eyes closed, one plucking, one pounding. Nearby lies a third, hands chest-clasped, contemplating the two moons gently contending overhead for celestial supremacy. The trio is edging across the tenuous bridge connecting youth to manhood, when the character which shapes the face has been poured but not yet hardened. Continue reading “Passing Notes (A Prosatio Silban Tale)”

(With much, much help from the indefatigable Ann Clark; five printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction.)

WAKING UP TO A BABY’S cry can be a normal thing for some people – but when the cry comes from just outside your front door, it bespeaks something strange afoot.

Prosatio Silban rubbed his eyes and sat up in the sleeping berth in the rear of his cozy galleywagon. The cries were coming from his portable home’s other end, where a double door separated him from the world of unwanted intrusion. Shrugging into a green silk robe, he padded across the galleywagon’s ornate rug and opened the door’s top half. Nothing but morning sunlight greeted him, so he opened the lower half as well.

There on the driver’s bench lay a worn wicker basket. In the basket, tucked into a soft blue woolen blanket, lay a small but full-lunged baby. O Blessed All-Mother, he thought. What have You set before me now? Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Lost Foundling”

(Five printed pages, and a sequel of sorts. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction.)

IT WAS THE MOST IMPROBABLE of places to meet someone from his past, but Prosatio Silban was accustomed to the improbable – in fact, one might even say he preferred it.

Riverwood was the northernmost border-settlement within the lands surrounding epicurean Pormaris, that most decadent of the Three Cities (and Thousand Villages) of the Uulian Commonwell. Nestled between tall, round Sentinel Hill to the west, and the thick-wooded Greenlanes to the north and east (and separated from that forest by the tranquil and iridescent Crooked River), the village was a destination not only for Uulian seekers-after-mystery but also, occasionally, to the Treeborn: furtive Greenlanes indigenes who traded in woodcraft and herbaceous treasures, culled from the very foliage that (rumoredly) gave them life. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Vanishing Point”

(Story idea by the redoubtable Ann Clark; two-and-a-half printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction.)

IF SOMEONE YOU LOVE BEGINS to act strangely, you could do one of two things: ignore the situation and try to carry on regardless, or engage as best you can.

That was the problem Prosatio Silban was puzzling over. His dray-beast, a shapeshifting buopoth named Onward, was usually enthusiastic about pulling the cook’s galleywagon. But this morning, his head hung between his forelegs; he didn’t at all meet the cook’s concerned gaze; and instead of his usual merry rattling hoot, his only vocalizations were soft sad sighs. Continue reading “Herd Instinct (A Prosatio Silban Tale)”

(Five-and-a-half printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction.)

THERE IS A SAYING ABOUT the religious life: that it’s only for the broken in spirit, heart, and/or mind.

That was one small reason why Prosatio Silban was a former Sacreant. In his brief stint as a servant of the Flickering Gods more than a quarter-century ago, he had seen much evidence for the old maxim. True, it did not describe everyone with a deep interest in divine matters, but it was accurate enough for many that it made him glad to have shifted careers and become a mercenary cook.

It is easier to comfort a hungry body than a hungry soul, he thought. And although one can do both, the former is also more profitable. Continue reading “Holy Trap (A Prosatio Silban Tale)”

(Three printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction. Enjoy.)

THE RHYTHMIC RAPPING OF STEEL on wood filled Prosatio Silban’s cozy galleywagon with the sharp tang of garlic, and he marveled – not for the first time – at how easily the aroma sliced through a quarter-century of cooking smells.

Having stopped for the evening in the shadow of haunt-rumored Mount Tenebor, the Cook For Any Price had seen to his great dray-beast’s dinner and was now preparing his own to suit the clammy evening chill. The surrounding area, mostly bare basalt rock with a scattering of curious boulders, did not readily retain the day’s heat; and he paused in his chopping to close the galleywagon’s carved and windowed upper door-half. He latched it, turned, and regarded his portable haven with fond familiarity. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Uninvited Guest”

(Two printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction. Enjoy.)

OF THE NUMBERLESS CREATURES INHABITING the Exilic Lands, none are perhaps so quaint as the lumbering buopoth – and though no two descriptions agree as to the shy animal’s exact appearance, Prosatio Silban felt he knew every pore and curve in the great dray-beast’s backside.

His knowledge did not come from prurience; rather, he had stared at little else for the past few days.

The Cook For Any Price was driving his galleywagon eastward through the flat and sweltering Western Wides, and had been sandwiched between bright blue sky and featureless green plain for the greater part of a sweaty eternity. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Final Kindness”

(Seven printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction. Enjoy.)

PROSATIO SILBAN’S FACE WAS THE picture of dispassionate interest, but his heart gave a familiar tug of weary resignation. This is what comes of confusing prosperity with blessing, he thought.

The Cook For Any Price and his prospective client’s retainer, Ulud, were sitting on lacquered folding chairs in the shade of the cook’s galleywagon which, along with innumerable booths, stalls and stands, congested the dockside bazaar of cosmopolitan Soharis. Bright hawker’s cries and early spring sunlight cut the chill morning air, and the salty breeze rising from the bay tangled the market’s aromas and odors into a seductive mélange. A dozen languages spilled from dozens of mouths: porters and sailors, farmers and fishermen, merchants and buyers, all bustling about their perpetual business with customary gusto. Continue reading “Soul Food (A Prosatio Silban Tale)”

(Five-and-a-half printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction.)

ALTHOUGH PROSATIO SILBAN’S COUNTRYMEN WERE were wary of most forms of magik – spells, illusions, conjurations, astral mucking-about – their phobia didn’t quite extend to items of convenience.

Amulets and talismans were generally tolerated throughout the Three Cities and Thousand Villages of the Uulian Commonwell, so long as they carried the patronage of one of the six-hundred-thirteen Flickering Gods. Difficulty staying awake? Finger a token sacred to Stueten, God of Energetic Determination. At your wits’ end over that crying infant? Zzyzzyvor, Bringer of Restful Relief has a charm just for you. Feeling the ennui of the jaded urbanite? A blessed figurine of Oliento, Goddess of Small Pleasures is what’s needed. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Iron Dray-Beast”