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For Pirndel Blatch, the Season of Skulls presented a different kind of horror. From the random bones scattered about, to the ill-attended bonfires, to the green mist of unknown composition that obscured the many tripping hazards, it seemed that everywhere in Tarsis there was an accident waiting to happen. As Fort Custodian, Pirndel was a stickler for safety—obsessed even.
He was the middle child of fifteen, all alive. People said it was miraculous, but the Blatch family knew better. “The world was too dangerous not to be careful,” his parents said, and it was only through unrelenting attention to safety that they had all survived.
There was a knock on the door. Startled awake, Pirndel rolled over abruptly in his tiny cot, and would have smashed his face against the stone wall had he not already covered it with plush fabric. Anticipating disaster was his chief expertise.
“Who is it?”
“It’s Sentinel Brin. There’s been an accident.”
Of course there has, he thought.
“We— we need the ladder. You’re the only one with the key to the shed. Hurry. Oh and, uh, there’s a fire, too.”
Of course there was!
Pirndel scrambled to his already booted feet and threw a light tunic over his nightshirt. This was precisely why he never slept without at least something on no matter how hot it was. And it was. Hot. He had appealed to have the holiday bonfires limited to outside the Fort walls. “But fires are fun!” everyone said. Pirndel wondered how seemingly smart people could be so blind to obvious danger.
“We’re heroes who are almost killed on a daily basis. Pretty sure we can handle the ‘dangerous’ Fort,” they scoffed.
Nobody listened.
In fact, although Pirndel Blatch knew what he was talking about, it seemed to him that the more thoroughly he explained an issue, the less they listened. That couldn’t be right, though—it just wasn’t logical.
You know who people listened to? A Bard.
Pirndel dreamt of being a Bard. Bards were beloved. Bards gathered crowds wherever they went.
Often he would go to gatherings where stories would be recited or songs would be performed. He’d sit at the back, his eyes wide, mouth involuntarily agape, drenched in sympathetic sweat. He marveled at how a Bard could hold the room’s attention. The crowd. Bards had gifts that the crowd appreciated. Pirndel’s heart swelled. He longed for that.
After the performance, he’d dry his damp hands and applaud with the crowd. Then the stage would be open for anyone to tell the audience a story.
Next time, he thought. To date, he never had.
Pirndel arrived in the courtyard to find exactly the kind of accident that made him fume. A Skulls reveler, wearing a mask with tiny eye slits and having drunk too much, had tripped on a cord obscured by green mist and pushed over a table that was placed too close to the fire, which tipped over a Sentinel guarding the fire (who was thankfully in a Ranger javelin). No one was hurt, but the impact had caused the fire to leap up into the colorful flags above.
Get the ladder.
He carefully dashed to the maintenance closet, key outstretched. Although no one made him, he ran fire drills such as this on a weekly basis. Often, he was the only one who attended. If he could trust people not to “borrow” his stuff, he wouldn’t have to place it under lock and key, which would be the safest option. However, a locked-away ladder was preferable to no ladder at all.
He quickly surveyed the area for a solid surface to place the ladder’s feet. “Cobblestone will never be a friendly platform on which to build ladder safety," he’d often say. This ladder was partially his own design, notably the part that made it extremely stable. He’d cleverly used a gyrostabilizer from a spare Interceptor to nearly eliminate any wobble.
He leaned the ladder against the wall and began to climb. He was over halfway up when he noticed that the Sentinels who were spotting him had moved off to the other side of the courtyard and were now in the middle of an intense conversation. He scowled. No one listens. As he climbed higher, he could feel the heat of the fire and sweat began to burn his eyes. It ran down his nose and pooled into a salty coating on his lips. He hated that. It was natural, to be sure, but it still made him shiver in disgust—and with that, the ladder began to tip.
The gyrostabilizer was failing! Perhaps the green mist of unknown composition was causing it to malfunction. He didn’t have a second for further theorizing—as the ladder slipped out from under him, he grabbed the flaming banner.
Pirndel felt certain that he had the makings of a Bard.
Although he was an obviously talented maker and fixer, most of his private time was spent reading. No one might suspect it to look at him, but he could recite many stories by heart.
In his room, Pirndel would stand in front of a portion of stone wall that he had polished so that he could see himself, and practice. He made sure that his eyes sparkled and that his gestures were suitably emotive and precise. He always felt content with the result.
At night, as he drifted off to sleep, he imagined his future. He imagined standing in the courtyard surrounded by Sentinels and Freelancers, merchants and regulators, children sitting rapt at his feet.
Listening.
“Don’t go, Pirndel!” they would shout. “Tell us more about the dangers of standing water! We could listen to you talk about guardrail maintenance for hours!” And so, he would. He would!
Hanging from the banner high enough that to simply let go would cause extreme physical trauma, Pirndel assessed the situation. The banner would hold his weight for now, he knew, because he’d been the one to hang it. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw an escape!
Hand over hand, slowly and methodically, he moved along the banner. Luckily, he’d thought to make the banner out of high-tension, non-flammable material—expensive, yes, but anyone with eyes who looked up at this moment would see how right he’d been. The flags sparked and burned, but the wire held tight.
When he reached the optimal spot, he set the banner swinging toward the nearby building. With perfect timing, he flung himself forward and landed on an exposed support beam. He found he’d judged the momentum very well. Smoothly pushing off from the beam, he leapt and grabbed a drain pipe with his strong, callused hands.
Here he noted that the parging, which wasn’t visible from the ground, had begun to crumble. He made a mental note to fix it. “Falling parging could absolutely take out a child’s eye,” he huffed.
He swung gracefully once around the pipe and dismounted with a backwards somersault onto a balcony below.
Meanwhile, the small fire had begun to spread.
Pirndel stood in the corner of the crowded room. He nervously flipped his lucky crystal over and over between his fingers. He knew in his heart that no one in the room was more qualified to be a Bard.
“Prindel Blartch?”
“I’m Pirndel Blatch,” he croaked.
He made his way to the front of the room. Sweat dampened every part of him.
He stepped up onto the presentation platform… which wobbled. Of course it did.
How long had it been this way, he wondered. Repairs not made promptly always become worse, increasing the danger exponentially. Lazy people are fond of sticking folded-up paper under a wobble. Those kinds of half-measures baffled and infuriated Pirndel. He made a mental note of the platform’s composition and the fix required. He also noted large slivers waiting to impale the unsuspecting sandal wearer. Plus, there was that creak, or maybe it was a squeak, that certainly should be fixed at the same time…
The crowd was staring.
Ahem.
He gulped and began a riveting story that Madam Chronicler had recommended as a captivating combination of intrigue, bravery, and great heroics—a guaranteed crowd pleaser.
This crowd, however, did not seem pleased. They were listening, that was true…
He blanked. He “umm’ed”. He coughed. He forgot the part about the battle with the Urgoth Chieftain and had to go back. He knew this! Why had his excellent mind left him now? Left him to suffer?
From the outside, it hadn’t looked this hard.
“The end. Thank you.”
As Pirndel bowed, the wobbly platform pitched him awkwardly sideways, and he stumbled quickly to the exit.
At home, he lay on his cot and, with one small tear of rage and humiliation trickling down his face, he recited the whole story to himself. Perfectly. Not that it mattered.
The fire was now leaping toward the scaffolding outside the Hall of Heroes. Pirndel sprinted across the rooftops. Luckily—or with expert foresight, one might say—he’d anticipated how disastrous a fire in the construction area of the great hall would be and had placed cisterns, buckets, and pulleys at the ready.
Pirndel directed the few citizens below to get water from the fountain, which he pulled up to the now growing fire. Even with the help of small the crowd, it seemed hopeless. Was the green mist of unknown composition somehow stoking the fire? He would have to do an assessment tomorrow… Then he had an idea.
“Hey you! Sentinel!”
The group of Sentinels were directing the crowd and couldn’t hear him.
“Damn those helmets,” he muttered, “so unsafe.”
No time to lose. Pirndel ran to the edge of the platform where he could just reach the end of a still-smoldering banner. He pulled a knife from his tunic and placed it in his teeth. He reached out, grabbed the banner, hacked at the cord, and swung across the courtyard to land in front of the startled Sentinels.
“We need to freeze that fire!”
“What?”
“FREEZE IT!” he pointed. “Can any of you do that?”
Without further hesitation, two of the Sentinels looked up and blasted the fire (and much around it!) from where they stood. It was a disastrous mess, but the fire was out, thanks to the ice sigils on their weapons.
The crowd erupted in applause, surrounding their Sentinel heroes with high-fives and glowing congratulations. Out of breath and relieved, Pirndel stumbled over to the fountain and sat gingerly on the edge. He looked around at the burned and frozen destruction. That was a job for tomorrow. His cot was calling. He pushed himself to standing with his blistered hands, and turned to walk home.
“Hey! Hey custodian! Where are you going?”
He turned around. Everyone was staring at him. Everyone.
“Bed?”
The crowd chuckled and nodded.
“Understood, said the Sentinel. But first, come here.”
Pirndel hesitated.
“Okay, I’ll come to you!” She crossed the courtyard in a single bound and, before he knew it, Pirndel was above the crowd, perched on the shoulders of two javelins holding him high.
“This is an accident waiting to happen,” he blurted by reflex.
People came out onto their balconies now—finally—to see what the commotion was.
He waved slightly. Shyly. The crowd applauded.
He boldly threw his arms into the air. The crowd cheered. They cheered.
Finally, the Sentinels placed him back on his feet. Then, as quickly as it had started, it was over. The courtyard was empty, save for the two guards who continued to watch the bonfire that had caused all the problems. Pirndel looked at it with chagrin and walked home.
Back in his room, he sat on the edge of his cot. He caught his reflection in the polished wall. He was smiling. He crossed his arms behind his head, laid back, and stared at the ceiling, feeling content and hopeful.
His eyes finally grew heavy and Pirndel Blatch drifted off to sleep, where he dreamt of daily fire drills and standing room-only safety meetings.
Special thanks: Neil Grahn, Ryan Cormier, Mary Kirby, Jay Watamaniuk, Karin Weekes