The Flute Thief (Part 1 of 2)

A Fantasy Short Story

Part 1 of a fantasy short story set in the world of my upcoming novel!

Estimated read time is: 10-15 minutes. (Word Count = 3585)

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 discernable, the dogs would begin travelling 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.

…To be concluded next week in Part 2!

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Love ya!

Max