"I'll speak to it though Hell itself should gape
And bid me hold my peace."
~Hamlet, scene ii
The bartender sat, cleaning out earthenware mugs at the end of a long night. He scanned the bar, watching those customers who remained in his smoke filled tavern. Only a few were left, most of them passed out on the floor. Stacking the mug carefully with its brothers, he let out a yell, "Last call! Y'all don't have to go home, but I'm 'fraid I can't let you stay here." While most of the drunkards washed down the last of their brews and the hired hands dragged those unable to walk out of the saloon, one man stumbled over to the bartender's side. Keeping his eyes downcast, the stranger murmured, "Just one more, please?"
"I'm 'fraid I can't do that, my brother. The bar is closed. Gods above man! Do….do you know about your, ah, gods! Mirthos!" The stranger quickly lowered his gaze once more, hiding his ghostly eyes from the bartender.
"Sorry. I've been on my own too long it seems. I forget about the eyes." Still muttering prayers for protection, the bartender made the sign against evil on his chest. "You know, for someone whose been drinking so much, you seems to hold your liquor well." he stammered out, trying to change the subject, "I saw you come in early and you haven't stopped drinking all night."
"I have reasons to drink."
"Wanna talk about it?" the barkeeper inquired, picking up another glass.
The man's eyes whipped up once more, and while the bartender did not swear this time, the unearthly colors sent shivers down the old man's spine. Belatedly, the bartender noticed the stranger had begun to respond, "Depends, do you wanna talk about it? We're bothered by the same issue." The bartender stared back in a moment of confusion, but recognized the babbling double-talk of drunks. Looking for a moment of amusement, he decided to play along. "Well, sir, what grievance do we share?"
"Did you love her at all?" When the bartender's only response was blanket confusion, the stranger crumpled in his chair, shoulders hunching over like he was about to cry. "No, you sit here, serving cheap liquors to desperate man, and smile. You care not for her." The stranger's head dropped until it rested on the table. "You don't remember her and wince, or speak of her with old friends. You sit here, as you have done every other night since you bought this gods' forsaken bar, and go on with your life. Did you ever feel anything towards her?"
The bartender shivered, instinct screaming at him to halt the conversation and kick out this foreigner. "What did you say?" he forced out of his closed throat, curiosity overcoming self-preservation for the moment. The bartender picked up yet another glass, polishing it with shaky hands, avoiding looking into the stranger's eyes.
"Did you not love your wife? Why have you not mourned her?" The mug fell to the floor, shattering.
"I loved my wife dearly," the bartender protested, hands trembling with rage. The strange man (was he even a man? A wandering god perhaps?) leaned in close, close enough where the bartender could smell the remains of a night's worth of drinks on his breath, and placed his hand under the bartender's chin.
A strange power pulsed beneath the stranger's words as he spoke, "Then mourn her as she deserves. Or else this weight that drags you down will never leave, and you will find yourself standing right here ten years from now, a shell of what you once where and a sad reminder to all who come through here of what might have been." The man fell back onto his stool, and looked down at the fragmented mug. "And you might want to clean up that mess."
"Who are you?" the bartender asked."Why have you come here?"
The crazy eyes stared right back at him. "I came because I heard you had the best ale in town." With eyelids crashing over his otherworldly eyes, the drunk then passed out, falling to the floor in a maneuver as old as booze.
The bartender woke to a fiery sun blazing in through the window. He rolled over, and felt a glimmer of surprise when he didn't encounter a familiar warm body. Sighing, he got up and dressed, wandering down the stairs in a drowsy stupor. He remembered to be quiet, not wanting to wake up his….guest, of sorts. The bartender still didn't understand why he asked the hired hands to bring the stranger into the house, but he had; he found he didn't regret his choice.
Yet he was surprised when he turned the corner into is kitchen to see the stranger standing in front of the fire, waiting for his water to boil. "Good morning," the stranger quietly greeted.
"Mornin'. I didn't expect you to be up so early. Thought you'd be sleeping off that hangover o' yours."
A wry grin spread across the quiet man's face, "I've had worse." Years of reading men led the bartender into his third question, "Got a lot to drink about, eh? You were no light-weight last night." The bartender received no answer, only another question. "Tea?" the quiet one inquired.
"Yes, thank yeh." The two men settled in at the kitchen table. Brought together by happenstance, the two could not be more unlikely companions. The bartender, grizzled and grey, was a stout man who could not keep still. He fiddled with the salt shaker, straightened his unruly beard, shifted back and forth in his seat. The stranger was quiet in every way. His hair was an unmentionable dirty blond. He was of average height. A lifetime of hard labors had formed wiry muscles, but the man was not unusually strong. He sat motionlessly, even as his tea grew cold on the table, waiting for the fourth question he knew was coming. Finally the bartender could stay silent no more.
"So, ah, if you don't mind me askin', how did you come to find out about my wife?"
The stranger looked at the bartender, his eyes scrutinizing the man until he squirmed. Finally, the man responded, "If we're going to talk about her, I think we should know each other's names first, don't you think? I'm Robert. Robert Cooper."
"An' I'm Jeremy Weiss. But please, might we get back on topic for a moment?"
"Of course we may. I had a wife too, you know. Gosh, I loved her. She was an herb witch, back in
Tortall. She's probably moved on to another man by now, but we were in love for a bit. But still, I think if she found out I had died, she would mourn me."
Jeremy shook his head with impatience, "Look if all you're here to do is give me strange riddles and dance around subjects go ahead! But I want you out of my house by-"
"I don't think I would be able to leave this life until my wife showed me how important I was in her life. Until she deigned to find a moment to mourn my passing, she would be denying me passage into the lands-which-lie-beyond." The barkeep couldn't find the right words.
"What… what are you talking about?"
Robert Cooper toyed with his teacup, pondering how to answer. Finally he looked up,
"Apparently I never want to return to this town, because I can't stop myself from telling you this: I talk to the dead," Jeremy made the sign against evil across his chest, "I hear their voices every waking moment, and they ask me to help them move on; beg me to try and finish what they couldn't do in life. The murder victims, I can't help them! Only the guardsmen can. The mothers who die on the birthing table, whose only, and unfulfilled, wish was to hold their newborns just once before they die; I can't help them. So when this old lady is stuck on earth because her husband won't even spare one moment to mourn her passing, won't spare one precious minute to celebrate the times they spent together, I act. It's one of the few moments where I can actually make a difference in someone's life, or, rather, their death." Jeremy stood up and began inching away, realizing he'd brought a madman into his home.
"G-, g-, get out," he managed to stammer.
"Not until you promise to do right by her. Not until you promise to let your wife find peace, in this world and the next," the stranger, the harbinger of doom, demanded.
"Get out."
"No." A quiet standoff ensued, neither man willing to turn his back on the other. Finally the barkeeper bent to Cooper's will.
"Fine. I'll take the day off, visit her. Are you happy?"
"I'm never happy. But yes, that works."
"Now get your stuff, and get out." The stranger stood, walking over to the pallet where he had slept the night before. His belongings, all of which he had brought into the bar last night, were already packed and ready to go. As the man swung his coat around his shoulders, he let out a hoarse laugh.
"What?" The barkeep inquired, anger rising in his chest at the idea that this vagabond was mocking him.
"It seems as though I am doomed to wander this earth for the rest of my years, my friend," the stranger replied.
"I am not your friend," the barkeep insisted. The stranger, Robert, simply continued preparing to go, quietly and efficiently.
"Do we not all want the same things out of life? Why can't strangers befriend strangers, if we all just want to be happy, be loved?" Jeremy was at a loss to reply. The stranger continued, uncaring of the barkeep's response, "I have been on my own too long, if I am pondering questions like that." Weariness sank into Cooper's body, making him pause in his preparations for the road, "As all men kick me out of their homes, I wonder, 'Who could love a man like me, haunted as I am by so many shadows?' I forget that I once loved, and was loved in return." The wanderer did not try to hold back the grin that split his face, as he gazed back through the years to a city the barkeep would never see for himself. "My Ilony was beautiful, and our daughter the crowning joy of our lives." Sorrow crept into his gaze, "A pity I couldn't stay. Rebekah, she'd be almost 7 now."
The bartender grew tired of waiting, "Get. Out. I never want to see your face again." The stranger settled the pack on his back, and walked across the kitchen and out the front door. On his way out he called back over his shoulder, "Good bye, my friend. Thank you for breakfast. Remember to mourn your wife; she deserves no less."
"Get out of here."
And so the man did. He walked out of the barkeep's house, past the bar, past the town square and the market. He walked straight of the town, never once straying from his path. Immediately after the man had disappeared from sight, the barkeep hurried over to the one small guard house in the town, and for months afterwards the men and women of the town watched for the strange man to return. None wanted a cursed man staying in their house, bringing the Gods' attention to their sleepy little town. Yet as summer turned to fall, and fall made its slow descent into winter, the incident soon passed from the minds of all but one.
The barkeep, a black band of mourning circling his arm, tended the bar like he had for forty years. Yet he checked the eyes of all travelers for that unearthly color he had only seen once before.