A Flagon of Ale

The sun has set, and with it the snow has begun to fall again. Heavy white flakes drift down silent, and muffling. They stack up in the streets and pile against the walls - there are no drifts this night, for there is no wind. Firtree branches bend over further and further under the weight of the soft wet stuff.

The Breeguard headquarters are dark and quiet. Well, not exactly quiet after all. The man in the closest jail cell has taken to pacing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth... he walks as heavily as he can, thumping his boots down on the wooden floor. A light burns in the Chief\'s room - the door is mostly shut, but through a crack, the man can be seen with his head on his hand, staring at his desk.

Thud

Thud

Thud

Thud.

\"SHUT UP!\" shrieks the Chief, and there is a low laugh in return.

Keldean slips into the guard building, looking around slowly. He had been looking for Frarin and couldn\'t find the dwarf, and figured there might be a chance to find him here. The teen has his worn, heavy coat on, and thick white flakes are clinging to his auburn curls, slowly melting.

He heads slowly towards the cell with the noisy occupant, nervous, but too curious to resist taking a look. He stands up on his toes, barely tall enough to reach the small window on the cell door. Brown eyes that are dark and wide in the dim lighting peer inside. There\'s a troubled expression on the boy\'s face as he gazes at the man. \"Are you Barlok?\"

\"I might be,\" replies the man inside. THUDthud. THUDthud. Across one side back. THUDthud. \"Then again, I might not...\" THUDthud. His dark eyes roll towards Keldean, glittering in the shadows. \"And who might you be, sonny?\" he asks suddenly, very soft coming right up to the window and staring out.

Keldean can\'t stop himself from backing up a step as the criminal comes right up to the window. He glances over towards the door with the light leaking out, then looks back towards the prisoner. The teen looks nervous, but his low voice is steady as he answers. \"Nobody. They say you\'re crazy. Is it true, or just an act?\" Why is he even talking with this man? A serious lapse in judgement.

The boy backs away and Barlok laughs wickedly. \"Nobody? Well now, isn\'t that quite a thing. Nobody... yet there you stand, flesh as me.\" His teeth flash in the light as he smiles. \"Which of us is crazy then, hmmm? Me who stands here fair as you see, or yourself, who thinks he isn\'t?\"

Keldean smirks, \"Yes.. I suppose that\'s true. I\'m not going to tell you who I am, though. I\'m probably not supposed to be here talking to you at all.\" Will the guard notice that the thudding pace has finally ceased? \"Did you do it for money?\" He asks next, moving closer again so that he can keep his voice down.

Barlok gives a shout of laughter that rings along the hallway. \"Well,\" he says sardonically, \"I hardly thought a weanling would be coming along to chat with m\'self with his mummy\'s full permission.\" He resumes his pacing, making his footsteps even more obnoxious than before. \"Do what?\" he asks after a minute, face and voice full of innocence. But the eyes that look sidelong at Keldean glitter more brightly.

\"Attack that woman..\" Keldean replies, moving to lean against the door, just alongside the window. \"You had to have a reason. It was money, wasn\'t it?\" He asks, trying to keep his voice as casual as possible. He\'s nervous but tries to remind himself that Barlok is trapped in the cell, and he\'s safe on the outside.

\"Which woman?\" the man says, then chuckles to himself at Keldean\'s nervousness. \"Scared of me, are you?\" he asks, returning with the same puma-like abruptness to the window. \"Sure, it was money,\" he says now, dropping his pretense of ignorance. \"Want to know how to go about it, do you? Planning to start up a little Murder For Hire business?\"

Keldean manages not to move away again when that voice is suddenly right at the window. He does jump a little, sucking in a startled breath, but looks up with a more determined expression now. He drops his voice to little more than a whisper, \"Maybe. Working an honest living isn\'t exactly the way to get rich around here. Nobody suspects someone my age.\"

Barlok\'s voice drops still further. Serious and quiet and deep. \"And you think you\'re cut out to go about sneaking up on people and beating them over the head, do you?\"

\"Do you?\" The seriousness of the man\'s voice becomes demanding, pushing, unrelenting. \"Do you??\"

The man is more than creepy. He\'s absolutely frightening. He\'s the one that tried to murder Cordelia, and even though there\'s that heavy door between them, he can feel goosebumps on his flesh. Keldean\'s gaze darts over to the guard\'s door again, swallowing. When he looks back some of his fear is under control. \"Yeah. Maybe.. At the very least I could pass information. There\'s money in that, right?\"

Barlok seems to weary suddenly of the game. \"Go back home to your mummy, little boy,\" he says dismissively, turning his back to the door. \"If you want to get rich quick, go steal something.\"

Keldean responds after a moment, his words still soft. \"And here I thought someone in your situation might want the opportunity to deliver a message.\" The man doesn\'t seem crazy to the teen. Maybe stir-crazy, but definitely not as psychotic as Cordelia made him out to be. Ignorance is a blessing, sometimes.

There is a pause, utter stillness. Barlok might be nothing more than a shadow. Then he turns around, his face still in darkness. \"Well, now,\" he purrs softly. \"There\'s no one I need a message taken to,\" there is contempt in these words he works alone. \"But you might earn a penny or two, if you wanted...\"

\"How would I get paid if you don\'t have anyone to deliver a message to?\" Keldean asks, still leaning against the door, his eyes shifting between the window and the guard\'s room. He\'s glad it\'s dark in the hall, so that Barlok can\'t see him very well. Somewhere in the back of his mind that voice pipes up again that he should be thinking about his sister\'s safety. He ignores it.

The voice gets quieter still. \"You think I haven\'t any money of my own?\" Then Barlok comes closer, padding soft-footed like a cat, and stopping just beside the door - his face not visible through the window unless Keldean moves. \"Do a thing for me,\" he says, his voice velvet and seductive.

\"What do you want done?\" Keldean asks, shifting slightly to look up into the cell again, trying to see the man. Most of his fear has faded now, the security of the locked door proving to ease his nerves considerably. Now the conversation is strangely exhilerating. \"And how would you pay me from jail?\"

\"Tomorrow night,\" Barlok murmurs, moving just a little so his eyes can catch the boy\'s. They seem nearly black and bottomless in the dim lighting, and they hold to Keldean\'s like a magnet. \"A little later than this.. come and bring the good captain a flagon of ale you work at the Inn, it should be easy to get.\"

Keldean grows strangely quiet for a long time, his features frozen in sudden terror as he stares up at the man. Any control the teen thought he had over the conversation melts away. \"How do you know where I work?\" He asks in a barely audible whisper.

A flash of teeth in the dark cell. \"I been about,\" Barlok says silkily. \"How d\'you think I knowed when that girl was going off with the dorf?\" He watches Keldean\'s fright, his face filled with pleasure.

Keldean squeezes his hands into fists to keep them from shaking. He leans against the door again, out of Barlok\'s sight and takes several slow breaths as he tries to calm his pounding heart. His voice is weaker when he speaks again, but to his relief it doesn\'t waver. \"Ale for the captain? Why?\"

\"To give him a drink, of course, don\'t be stupid.\" Barlok sounds suddenly contemptuous, then as abruptly, returns to the cajoling tone. \"Works hard, don\'t he? And he has to put up with me.\" A sudden grin.

\"So he\'ll get drunk?\" Keldean asks, his mind running through several possibilities. Would the captain be foolish enough to drink on the job? Hopefully they have more sense and self-control than -that-.

Barlok loses patience all at once, rolling his eyes and moving swiftly (and still silently) to the back corner of his cell. He sits down and shuts his eyes, muttering something - of which a few words might be distinguished. \"... from stupid children....\"

Stupid?! That\'s insulting, and it bothers him more than it should considering the source. Keldean gets up on his toes again to glare into the cell. \"You better have the money.\" And then the boy sneaks away.