The Flute Thief

The Complete Fantasy Short Story

The Flute Thief

I.

Triph called himself an opportunist. He had those he called friends, and they would call him a scoundrel, pickpocket, or thief. He visited his friends out of necessity, and they dreaded the day Triph found them necessary.

He was alone as he left the farm into the nearby trees. The farm held a mansion larger than any Triph would ever live in, and their woodfarm was lush and rich with trees. The small pack on Triph’s back looked stuffed beyond the seams, each corner straining under the weight and years of use. On top of the pack was a large cloth bindle, stuffed and misshapen, that Triph carried over his shoulder with a metal rod. It looked to be made from a tablecloth.  As he walked deeper into the woodfarm, his pace became less and less urgent. If someone saw him now, they might wonder why the small man, damp with sweat and struggling with the weigh on his back, looked so relieved. The smile would not leave his face, and his eyes held a brightness as they looked ahead. The trees could not say what they wondered. All Triph wondered was what to have for dinner.

The trees of the woodfarm were dense, most were evergreens with pointed tops touching the clouds in the sky. The deciduous trees were planted less often, they were more delicate in the climate this far north. As Triph moved deeper into the woodfarm, the plantings became less organized and more natural. Natural, laughed Triph, he had never been in a natural forest in his life. He never would be, they didn’t exist, at least not where he was from. In the deeper parts of the woodfarm a semblance of what Triph thought a natural forest could be did appear. Some saplings grew, unplanted by the mansion’s staff; they had grown as best they could as seeds that fell from their parent trees. A few strove upward towards the sunlight that bled through the needles above. Most of the saplings would die.

Triph walked easily through the woods. He did not remember the story the locals told all too often when caught over a drink in the town tavern, of the grand fire that struck the area years ago. He just kept walking. He had heard it, but being irrelevant, had forgotten it. So, with a clear mind, he walked until he heard the hint of running water in the distance, where he stopped, turned himself towards the sound, and continued.

Triph smiled, following the sound had brought him to a river that some arrogant mapmaker had probably called a stream. He did not know if the water had a name, but he followed it along the rocky bank to the thinnest part. The remnants of snowmelt from a winter barely two months to bed did not make crossing the water easy. He set down the tablecloth bindle on the shore and it unfolded itself, letting loose a large sausage. It rolled in the dirt and down the rocks before, swearing, Triph caught it. It hadn’t touched the water, but that would have decided what was for dinner that night. He brought it back up to the bindle and took the pack off his back to retie the cloth shut. Cinching the knot tight, he hefted the filled cloth to the edge of the water and threw it over the frigid stream. It landed with a thud and Triph watched, eyes unwavering, as he waited for it to roll into the water. It did not. He hoisted his pack high atop his shoulders and used the rod from the bindle as a walking stick as he stepped into the running water.

Once across the stream with wet legs and a dry pack, Triph resituated everything and continued his walk. It was only a short walk away from the water before Triph came upon his small camp. A modest setting, it had been his home for the past two weeks. There was a small pit that he had kept a fire in, with branches and chaff from the forest floor charred at the bottom, he had stacked larger branches on each side of the pit to block the light from straying too far and to push as much heat to his bed as possible. He slept with a thin wool blanket on a deer hide bedroll that was nearer being a leather strop than it was to being a fur bedroll. He had stayed dry in camp both weeks by hoping that it did not rain.

Now back at home sweet home, Triph set down the pack and the bindle by the fire pit and then went over to the bed, kicked some fallen nettles off of the blanket and sat down. He beamed as he looked at all he had accomplished in two weeks work, packed tightly in pack and bindle. Shifting his weight forward he took off his belt and knife and set them by his bed. Taking the knife from the sheath, he looked at the blade. The dark steel reflected sunlight in his eyes. He had not had to use it today. Sheathing the knife and setting it down, he reached out to his pack, pulling it close and removing a small piece of tack and a black nub that may have once been sold as cured meat. With effort, he tore a piece of the tack and took a bite. He chewed and chewed and he stared at the cloth bindle. If only that sausage had fallen into the water, then it would have had to be eaten tonight before it went bad. He was certain the hard tack had not made him drool like this before and he weighed his options before smiling, shaking his head, and taking another bight of the almost-but-not-yet-rotten cured meat in his hand.

The afternoon had passed into evening, and that too began to pass. Triph gathered up more of the branches and forest floor that surrounded his, and began a fire. This was the greatest law he broke that day. He did not care for the law, and felt no more ill burning a man’s profits in a woodfarm than he did robbing that man blind. The fire was small, but the night would be cold and it was worth the effort. As he lay under the stars, Triph tried to sleep, but temptation won the battle in his mind. He opened the bindle, and in the dim light, gazed what he called his “wages.” It was work after all. The tablecloth laid out on the ground held a mass of food. The scent that wafted from it reminded Triph of the smokehouse. In front of him there were two full rings of sausage links, four hams, and what looked to be a combination of every kind of root and vegetable that one can imagine a farmer growing in the small garden kept between the smokehouse and the barn. Not content to just look at the food taken in today’s conquest, Triph upturned his pack and scattered the objects in there. Coins and jewelry and carvings all fell out of the pack. There was a lot there, if he could fence the carvings, Triph would be a rich man. Beneath them lay larger items that Triph always carried with him: an ax, some rope, a metal file, and some candles, along with two large flasks. With his pack empty, he loaded it with clothes and the two flasks, then the gear up top. He marveled at his haul in the dim fire light and went to organizing it. He tinkered away with the pack and a few of the carvings until sleep started to take hold of him and he tucked himself under the blanket and the table cloth.

He woke to dogs barking in the distance. It startled him awake, but he was not shocked to hear them. He eyed the smoldering fire deep in the center of the pit he had dug. He didn’t want it to go out, but didn’t want the light it gave off to cause other issues, it was dim enough he thought it would be fine. Minutes felt like hours as the noise of the dogs got closer, then farther, then closer again. He though he heard men shouting or calling, but before the sound was discernible, the dogs would begin traveling further away from him. The smoldering flame began to die on its own and there was nothing Triph could do other than lay there under blanket and tablecloth, clutching his knife and watching his breath float away in the ever cooling air.

He waited, listening, as the fire finally extinguished itself. It was then that it sounded like the hunter’s drive had almost died, the sounds of the dogs were infrequent and farther away. Triph held his breath. The sounds turned to silence and he held his breath further. He waited until his lungs screamed and forced him to open his mouth and inhale. The silence of the woods was the only thing there. The dogs had moved on. He quietly left his blanket to restart the fire in the pit. In the darkness, just before the first spark took to the cooling embers, he heard music begin to play, and it was close.

II.

The sun was higher in the sky than Triph would have liked when he woke the next morning. He cleared his eyes and looked around, he saw nothing but the trees of the woodfarm and a gentle breeze causing them to dance. He stood up and stretched when a song came to his mind and he remembered the music. He didn’t remember falling asleep, he thought it must have been a dream. Sitting back down on the ground he pulled one of the smoked sausages from his pack and began to eat. Then it began again. Almost as if being carried by the breeze that danced with the trees, the sound of music flowed into his little camp. Triph found himself standing, he took a step towards the sound then stopped. He wrapped the food in his blanket and fixed his knife and belt to his person. He began to walk towards the music on the wind.

Triph walked blindly thought he forest, never pausing to turn and look at his surroundings or ensuring he had his bearings. His thought only ever strayed away from the music in brief moments when his hand patted the knife on his belt. It made him feel safe. He reached a wide and deep part of the river he had crossed the day before. This was much farther downstream than he had walked in his scouting trips and he took a moment to stop and take a drink from the cold rushing water. It was the coldest he had felt it. The serenade continued as he continued to walk down the stream, deeper into the woodfarm. It was dense here, and the woodfarm could be truly called a forest at this point. Nature had fought and taken back what little it could beyond the edge of the established farm, or the farmer had grown content and lazy, letting his crop grow freely. As Triph walked, the music grew louder.

Finally, after rounding a thicket in the trees, Triph saw the enormous creature making the music. A huge round mass stood in the shadow under a tree by the water on two frail legs. Triph began to draw his blade, but froze as the creature turned towards him. As it turned, tubes on its back swayed and hit one another creating a cacophony of mixed musical sounds. The music finally stopped and the diminutive voice of an old man said: “Hello?”

Triph sat next to the spindly old man on a downed tree overlooking the stream. Internally he scolded himself for freezing when the man had spoken. The enormous pack that had made the man look inhuman lay on the ground at their feet and Triph felt like a fool.

“Do you sell these?” He asked, pointing at the man’s bag. The tubes strapped to the outside were flutes. There were dozens of them.

“No no, I collect them,” said the old man. His voice was quiet and Triph almost lost the words beneath the sound of the stream. Even under the rushing water, the man’s voice sounded musical.

“Quiet the collection,” said Triph, realizing now how brusque and rough his voice sounded.

“It has grown as the years go by,” said the old man. “What brings you to these woods?”

“It’s a long story,” said Triph, but that didn’t feel like enough; “but hopefully that chapter ends soon.”

“Ah, so you are a traveler. I’d like to hear that story! I am always looking for new tales to turn into song” The old man lifted the flute he’d been holding through the conversation to his lips and punctuated his words with a few notes.

“How did you start doing that?” Triph asked. The old man gave him a quizzical look. “I mean, how did you start playing that music and collecting those things?”

“You ask questions with answers that you wouldn’t like to hear. That story is long and has a boring ending. Only the wealthy and the dumb would pay to hear that song,” laughed the old man. Triph laughed with him.

The man looked out at the water and the forest beyond and began playing music again. Triph listened as the notes balanced themselves with the crashing of the water and the rustling of the trees in the wind. He looked out at the trees and felt like he was dreaming. The man’s song began to fade into its finale and Triph laughed to himself. The old man’s eyes looked to him while the last notes left his flute. The song ended and Triph spoke.

“You know when I saw you with your pack on in the shadow of the tree, I didn’t think you were a man,” he laughed. “I was terrified, I thought I’d been drawn to your music like a ship to one of those monsters of the seas.” The old man looked at him and set his flute down.

“That is funny now, but live long enough and you will see some strange things in your life.” Triph’s eyes didn’t leave the old man’s gaze as he spoke. “Look at the trees, they are behemoths ancient and proud, only the youngest of saplings compete with them. Man has tried to tame what trees they can, as there are so few left, but look out and see the forest still fights domestication. Everything smaller than these monstrous trees died in the fire two years ago, only their youngest children, the saplings, are left. Yet as old as these statues of life are, even the giants grow older, and they, like any man, age and grow old and die.”

“Pah! The giants are long dead,” said Triph. “They’re as mythical as the monsters of the sea we joked about before.”

“Not so,” said the old man,” even now in the north beyond north, in the great mountains there are giants left living.”

“That can’t be true, and how could you know that?”

“It is true, one of the few that remain gave me this,” said the old man as he pulled a flute from the inside of his pack. The head of the flute had stuck out from the top of the bag and the old man gently unwrapped a roll of hide that encased it. “It is one of my most prized possessions,” he said, handing the exposed flute to Triph. It was as big around as the thickest part of his calf, and as long as his leg. It took almost his entire palm to cover one of the holes on the side of the flute.

Triph didn’t think things through, he was not a planner and ideas formed in his mind in an instant without any other consideration. That was the moment that he decided to rob the old man.

“Yet!” said the old man, pulling Triph’s eyes up from the giant’s flute and his mind from its thoughts. “Even the oldest of the giants only has the faintest of idea of what used to be. What existed before. Are you a man of faith?”

Triph hated this question. He was not, but he always tried to answer how he knew his adversary would want him to answer. This man was hard to read though. Without planning or thought he was compelled to honesty: “I am not.”

“That is good, the priests and prophets of today are scoundrels and liars,” said the old man. Triph smiled feeling accomplished. “But you have been to their charades and shows, have you not?”

“I’ve been to a few churches and ceremonies, yes, when I was young.”

“Good, then you have heard their lies firsthand. They lie for money and for gain, this is true of all priesthoods, but even a liar for profit can tell the truth sometimes. These priests often say that the gods once walked the very soil that you and I walk now. This is true.”

“How can you know that if what they say is lies? You know if you lying now, or just repeating old lies?”

“What I say is true. It is true if you go to the old places. The places in the world touched by naught but time. There you will see the true sign of the gods marking this land. The did walk among us for a time and no two priests will ever agree on why they left. But that does not mean that they were not here.”

“Which of the gods?”

“All of them, in some form or another. They were all here in the beginning. Only as the world settled and began to age as they did not, did they decide to leave. That brings me to my point.” Triph listened to the man’s words, but the darkest corner of his mind tinkered away, bouncing from idea to idea on how to take all that he could from the man. “When the gods left this world,” the old man continued. “They left behind artifacts.” Triph’s eyes widened and his focus returned to the old man.

“These artifacts were not baubles of gold or jewels like the stories might have you believe.”

Triph slumped on his seat. “What were they then?”

“What they left were spirits,” the old man’s eyes met Triph’s, “and monsters.”

Triph broke eye contact and looked out beyond the stream to the old growth of trees beyond the two men. “Like ghosts?” he asked.

“Some were, yes,” said the old man. He turned and looked out at the same trees Triph saw. “But most spirits were not so benign.” He tapped the flute he held on his legs. “Wherever the gods went, they left their magic accumulated. A little time may have left a ghost or a sprite of the land, but a longer time left something with more the god in it then the land. And the gods were not always happy as they stayed in this world. The world wasn’t theirs anymore, it was growing away from them. This saddened some, but made many of them fill with anger. The spirits there were stronger in those places and they held onto the furious anger of their accidental creators. These are the monsters of the world.”

Triph stared out. “What if I don’t believe in the gods?” he said.

“That is easy to understand,” said the old man. Triph turned to look at him, but the old man’s eyes still looked at the world beyond the river. “The gods have been gone so long and the stories have been tainted so much. What I hear in a town’s church today can never match what I heard when I was young. It is sad to me, but so life goes. Each generation farther from the faith, but more cemented in the real parts of the world. I do not know if this is bad for all things.” Triph’s eyes could not leave the old man’s face, but still the man stared out passed the conversation. “This is why I play my music and collect as I do. The songs and instruments are a part of lives throughout time, as I play a bit of that life comes through.”

Triph had nothing to say, but his stomach grumbled. The old man turned and looked at him.

“Goodness, you have indulged me too much,” he said. “It is past midday and I have walked little. You are hungry and I cannot feed you. Camp is so far away it seems.”

“Where are you camping?” asked Triph.

“Wherever my feet take me and my pack. I have no destination, but am always pressed to move on beyond where I stand.”

“Camp with me tonight,” said Triph. The words left his mouth before the thought finished forming in his mind.

“You have nothing with you. Where are you camped?”

“Not far from here. It may not make you want to stay still, but I have food to share and stories to tell if you join me.” Triph realized he was about to say the only wholly true thing that has crossed his lips in a long time. “I enjoy talking to you.

III.

The old man gingerly set down his massive pack as he and Triph reached the camp. Triph had thought to offer his help in carrying the weight but the old man had looked determined hoisting the bag upon his shoulders. Plus it was too soon to make his move.

The walk back had not taken long, the hardest part for Triph was getting his bearings. He had not been careful walking out, when he went to find the source of the music, but the old man pointed him in the direction he had come from, and they walked together along the water until the scenery started look more familiar to Triph. The forest was less dense here, and the trees ever so slightly more organized, like the pathing of a true woodfarm. Triph smiled when he saw the small bundles of the bedroll and the tablecloth and his pack in the distance. He was not happy to be back to camp, he was happy for other reasons.

The old man looked around the small disheveled camp. The earth under in the area had been packed down over the days of Triph’s stay. Triph had not taken note of this. “Have you been here long?” asked the man.

“About a week,” said Triph.

“What brought you here?”

“That damned sheriff,” snapped Triph before he could think, it was only a moment before he feigned a smile across his face.

“Ah yes, there are many such songs in this world,” said the old man standing near his pack.

“None like mine,” said Triph. He sat on the forest floor and pulled out one of the smoked sausages from under his blanket. He took out his knife and sawed off the bottom fifth of the link. He held it out to the old man who took it and both began to eat.

A few moments of silent chewing rolled across the men before the old man spoke. “Thank you,” he said.

“Yeah,” said Triph, finishing his bite. “You look like you’ve gone a long time without some red meat. You’re all bones.” He laughed.

“I have been traveling for a while,” said the old man, sitting on the forest floor next to his pack, close to Triph. He set the sausage on his lap and pulled a flute off his pack and lay it next to the sausage link. “I would like to know more about why you are traveling,” he said. “How long has it been since the incident with the sheriff?”

“You don’t mind that I’ve had a run in with the law?”

“The heroes of many songs have run afoul of the law, that does not make them bad people. They are not a bad focus for a story or song.”

“Alright then,” said Triph, shrugging his shoulders. He looked up towards the treetops and grinned. “It was all her fault, the Sheriff’s daughter.” He looked back at the old man for a reaction. There was none, but he had not taken another bite of his food. “I had to pay her dowry somehow.”

“So it was a tale of love,” said the old man.

“Sure,” said Triph. “She was damn fine if you don’t mind me saying, damn fine. Prettiest girl I’d ever convinced to sit on my lap at the tavern. I was new to town so I wasn’t sure if she was the prettiest or richest in town but it didn’t matter. She was mine right then. Problem was, she was old fashioned. Well, she wasn’t too old fashioned,” he paused looking up again at the trees, smile not leaving his face, “but her old man was very old fashioned and I guess she took after him in that sense. Wanted a wedding and I said no, but she said yes so I asked her to be my bride. She called me a fool and said I had to ask her father. Now like I said, I hadn’t been there long, but I’d been there long enough to know that the sheriff was a miser. The damn girl wouldn’t be cheap, so I needed money. And it is a fault of mine, but I am an impatient man at times. I wanted her as my bride and I wanted that now.

Triph paused his story and looked down from the treetops back at the man. “You want something to drink?” he asked.

“I have plenty of water,” said the old man.

“No,” said Triph, reaching down to the bottom of his pack and removing a wooden flask. “Do you want something to drink?”

“I am fine, thank you though. Please continue telling me your story.”

Triph took a gulp from the flask and exhaled. “Sure, so like I was saying, I needed money now. There were no towns close that I could go and do business in so I was stuck making money locally. I was lucky though, when I’d first come to town I’d been thorough,” he took another swig from the flask. “I knew that in the basement of the tavern there was a cobbler who set up shop.”

“Why in the tavern’s basement?” asked the old man. He seemed to be taking in each detail and committing it to memory as Triph spoke.

“Not sure, heard he was some hermit and didn’t like people none too much.”

“How interesting.”

“Yeah, so anyway, I figured that the old cobbler didn’t have a whole lot of friends, and his shoes weren’t cheap, so I knew he had money down there. It all lined up when I heard a rumor that the tavern keeper kept most of his money down in the basement too. It was the biggest joint in town, so that had to be a lot of loot.” He paused, but the old man just watched. He couldn’t sense any judgment in the old eyes watching him tell the story. Maybe he wouldn’t have to hurt or kill the old man. It could go better that way. He continued unbidden.

“One night I stay out drinking there, only as I do, I have one of the back corner windows cracked. When the bartender wasn’t looking I snapped off the lock too, just in case, then made it look all solid and closed. When the shop closed up and me and the other patrons got the boot I waited outside. A half hour passed and all the lights went out. I waited another half hour and then I snuck in.

“My eyes are pretty good in the dark so I got around without nudging any tables or kicking any chairs. The place was pretty clean so it was easy to move through without shaking anything up. Plus I’d spent my fair share of time aquatinting myself with the joint prior to the job at hand. The cellar door was behind the bar and it opened up with a creak. Nothing to be done about it at that point. I didn’t hear any other sounds or movement, so I went down.

“It was dark down there, but there was still enough moonlight making it through the tiny windows and the cellar door for me to do my work. After a bit of shuffling and searching I found the chest I’d come for. I don’t even think it was locked. It’d be a better story if I had to pick the lock though, no?” He looked at the old man, but there was no response. He was sure that would get a response, the man seemed to be loving his story. He was just about to begin again when the old man spoke.

“You aren’t sure?” he asked. Triph smiled, the man had taken the bait. It really was a good story to tell.

“Never got the chance to check. Heard a noise behind me and saw the cobbler. Must have woke him when I was looking around. He had something in his hand and he swung it at me, and, well, you can’t instigate something like that without accidents happening.”

“Did you hurt him?” asked the old man.

“Accidents happen and he swung first,” said Triph. He waited for a rebuttal but none came. The man just looked at him. Triph found his eyes looking up at the treetops again. Evening was setting in and there was a chill in the air moving the points of the trees.

“So the noise we made down there caused a real ruckus and the barman came down. Well he was armed and after he saw what had happened down there he could not be convinced of any other path. He took me to the sheriff that night and they locked me up. I was lucky he was a law-abiding man.”

“Did you escape?”

“Nothing so fancy. I heard the sheriff and his daughter arguing late into the night from my cell. They lived there, above the jail and the cells.”

“Very small town.”

“But when morning came, the sheriff came for me anyway. Not sure how the whole damn town heard the news, but they were all around the chopping clock that the sheriff was walking me towards.”

“And his daughter?” asked the old man. He seemed to be hanging on every word that left Triph’s mouth.

“Crying her eyes out, front and center. Sheriff had to have seen it too. He had a black mask on but the whole town knew it was him. Ceremony and all. But to my surprise, and you won’t believe this, he leaned in real close, just before we crossed into the crowd at the block and whispered ‘Run boy. Never let me see you again, and run!’ Well I didn’t need to be told twice. I elbowed his gut to make it look real and then I ran. I ran and I ran and then I looked up and was passed the town and the farms and I was in these woods.”

Triph’s eyes left the treetops and made contact with the old man’s. He looked away, and it was the first time Triph thought, since he had started talking that the man had stopped staring at him. He took a bite of the sausage he had left in his hand and washed it down with the flask.

“That is a sad tale,” said the old man, his voice carried by the gentle wind as he looked out into the woods.

“I survived it though, so sad is it may be, it had a happy ending.”

“That is good, but it does not make it happy, it was a good story though. I think I will make a song tonight.”

“Tonight?” Triph said. He looked around and realized how dark it had gotten. The sun was below the trees and was almost below the horizon. They had not started a fire. Triph wasn’t sure how the old man might react to burning the wood.

“I make the best songs during sleep,” said the old man.

“I’ve never heard of that,” said Triph, yawning. “But I’ve never spoken to a musician before either. I always thought you’d be a weird bunch.”

“I don’t think we’re all that strange,” said the old man and Triph laughed. “Well, it is getting dark, I must be setting up my bed now before too much of the night falls.” He stood and hoisted his pack onto his shoulders.

“Don’t go too far! I want to hear that song in the morning,” said Triph.

The old man chuckled as he walked away, his laugh was a soft as his voice and it flowed through the air like music. He lifted a flute to his mouth and began quietly playing a tune.

Triph watched where the man went into the woods, he had a hunger in his eyes. He took another swig of the flask and as the sun went down, the hunger faded away and his eyelids grew heavy. “Maybe no fire tonight,” he said quietly to himself as he lay down on his bedroll. The last thing he saw as his eyes closed for sleep was the sausage link he gave to the old man, alone and uncared for on the forest floor.

IV

Music played in the forest as the sun rose above the treetops. The forest floor was pristine as the finest of woodfarms. It looked untouched everywhere save for a small fire pit next to an empty bedroll. The bedroll had a blanket and tablecloth nearby, and leaning against a tree was a pack full to the brim. It was packed to tightly that the seams were beginning to wear on the corners, but there was no person to carry it. Everything looked placed, as if from above. There was not a single footstep in the floor that could have brought it there. Deeper and deeper into the woods, beyond the order of the woodfarm and into the natural part of the forest there walked an old man. He was playing a song on a flute. The flute was new, and the song sounded like something played in a tavern.

The End.

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