It'll Rain Tonight

Mr. Faster hadn't come back alone. He had brought a friend from the city—a dwarf woman.

Dwarves might sound appealing to people with certain tastes, but their barrel-shaped bodies would likely put those people off.

To picture one, imagine someone who weighed about as much as a human but stood only as tall as an adult's stomach.

And, crucially, even dwarf women had thick, coarse beards and body hair.

Once Annan learned Tasia was a woman, he could see her as one. With a dwarf woman, he found it much harder to know how to think of her.

The dwarf woman's name was Soluman Copperbeard, a name that fit every stereotype about dwarves.

Annan was curious enough to want to talk to Soluman Copperbeard, but she didn't much like him. By dwarven standards of beauty, Annan's lack of body hair and healthy wheat-colored skin made him look like a plucked quail.

"What about me?"

Martin, who considered himself rather hairy, sidled over to help Annan make a good impression. Mr. Faster kicked him away.

"Get over there and wipe the tables. I'd better not find any dust."

Mr. Faster and Soluman Copperbeard went down into the tavern cellar. Evelyn wiped the counter, while Annan opened the doors and windows to air out the musty smell of wood.

Beyond the rooftops on the corner, the sky glowed with a brilliant sunset. A few pedestrians headed home. In that peaceful, lovely moment, Annan understood why an elite professional would open a tavern here.

But for a boy, nothing was as enticing as adventure and stories.

"It's going to rain."

Annan wiped the windowsill and gazed at the sunset, speaking to himself.

"I hope so."

The bard appeared outside the window with his lute on his back. The rooster feather in his hat swayed in the evening breeze.

"You like rain too?"

"Rain just makes for a better storytelling atmosphere."

The bard stepped into the tavern and hung his hat on the coat rack. "Your Common Tongue has improved again."

Annan accepted the compliment. "Have you been away from town these past few days?"

Not everyone who loved attention was a bard, but every bard loved attention. Yet Annan hadn't heard where this one had gone.

The bard said he had first visited a neighboring town. He had barely found a tavern and hadn't even started performing there when another bard drove him out. He happened to run into Mr. Faster and caught a ride to Breeze City.

So when Mr. Faster and Soluman Copperbeard came up from the cellar, the bard greeted them without a hint of surprise.

The tavern reopened. Mr. Faster and Soluman Copperbeard sat in a corner to discuss business. Evelyn minded the counter, Martin kept an eye on everything, and Annan urged the bard to begin tonight's story.

After seven days closed, the tavern had few customers that night, all regulars Annan knew by name. The bard seemed to notice Annan's interest in dwarves and told him plenty about them.

Beyond the familiar facts that dwarves loved drinking and forging, he talked about the mutual dislike between dwarves and elves. Then came the sort of bawdy question best raised in a tavern: would a human and a dwarf have a half-dwarf child, or a gnome?

Soluman Copperbeard gave the official Dwarf answer: Dwarves and humans couldn't have children together.

Annan knew that was called reproductive isolation, but Soluman Copperbeard said the Dwarf gods were protecting Dwarf bloodlines from contamination—

The conversation then branched into an amusing chain of stereotypes: humans were conventional, orcs savage, elves arrogant, dwarves stubborn, and ratfolk prolific.

Soluman Copperbeard scoffed at that and declared that humans had the least potential of all the major races. An orc had the strength of a level-one warrior by adolescence. Elves were born superb rangers. Ratfolk could multiply dozens of times over in a single summer. Dwarves weren't born knowing how to forge, but an adult dwarf's arm was twice as thick as an adult human's—

Her assessment favored no race. Even the bard could only agree, though he dressed it up as "humans are the most well-rounded race."

Dragons became legends simply by surviving to adulthood, while scions of the gods possessed terrifying power from birth.

Potential was tied to the ability to reproduce. So whether in this world or others, human potential wasn't particularly high.

As for humans being considered "conventional," that was probably because they lived in every world and were favored by the gods.

"Bard, talk about something else."

Mr. Faster rapped on the table. Soluman Copperbeard was so busy talking to him that she had forgotten their business.

The bard plucked his Lute, drawing the customers' and Annan's attention back to his story, and began describing what he had seen in Breeze City.

It was a city nestled in a forest, between the Snow Mountains to the north and the green fields to the south, with winding roads leading in every direction. From there, you could admire the snows of the Beorut Northlands and gaze across a vast, open plain.

A single district could hold all of Pinglin Town. Toss a basin of water into the street and you might splash a dozen professionals. The north gate was crowded with adventurers and mercenary companies returning from hunts in the Snow Mountains.

Annan listened, entranced, as time slipped by.

Sometime after nine, a low rumble of thunder came from outside, followed by the moan of the wind.

Divination?

The bard looked at Annan in surprise.

The customers left one after another, unwilling to be stranded in the tavern on a rainy night.

"There probably won't be any more customers."

Only drunks came out in the rain. Mr. Faster told Annan and the others to hurry home before it started and leave the cleanup until tomorrow.

He watched the three youngsters run out of the tavern, shut the door against the cold wind, and turned to the bard, who had set down his lute and taken a seat across from him.

"Aren't you going home?"

"You'll never guess what I discovered..." The bard pulled the oil lamp closer and said with an air of mystery, "Annan might know divination..."

"When I arrived, he said it was going to rain. The sky was clear then."

"I could say that every day. Sooner or later, I'd guess right." Faster sat down across from him.

"Divination? A boy who couldn't speak Common Tongue and has no Magic Power?" Soluman Copperbeard said.

"You're a warrior. You can't tell whether he has Magic Power. Besides, he might be hiding it."

Faster realized the bard wouldn't have brought this up without a reason. "What did you find?"

"I heard a few things in Breeze City." The bard leaned toward the oil lamp, bringing his face into vivid relief. "The next lord of Breeze City—the Reeves family's only son—was attacked."

"What does that have to do with divination?" the impatient Dwarf asked.

"Everything!"

The bard lowered his voice, relating what he had learned as though telling a story. "I asked around the city and heard what the wind carried..."

"Every member of the Reeves family has distinctive black hair."