Chapter Thirty-Six

  Soon the fire blazed.

  “Not too much wood at once, Highview,” Liatris chided him. “You’ll roast our guests.”

  He drew back a log which he had been about to add.

  The two of them just watched the fire, silently for the moment. From the woods we heard some wong wongs from frogs, and also droning insect chatter from high up. The firelight illuminated the clearing, and the stately tree trunks bordering it, in yellows and oranges.

  “This light,” I said, “reminds me of the great hall in the tower where we were a few nights ago. Where the korreds took us to confront that blue apparition. After we had done that, they built a fire themselves, in the old hearth there. It lit up the room just like this one lighting up your clearing here.”

  “A tower a few days’ walk from here?” Highview asked. “Did it seem a bit haunted?”

  “Yes it did. Even without our apparition.”

  “I know which one you mean, then. Brave of you to spend the night in there.”

  “There are other old towers around?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Some of them quite tumbled down by now, though.”

  “In addition to the haunts, this one had boggarts in it. At first. The korreds ran them out.”

  “Boggarts?” Highview said. “Uncouth little characters, aren’t they?”

  “Indeed.”

  “How did the korreds chase them away?”

  “They sang them out,” I said. “A powerful fight song. We sang along with them. They had some steps to it, also. Caiside joined in the dancing.” I nodded toward her.

  “And you’re a musician, you mentioned.”

  “I am.”

  “Tell me,” he said. “Do you have any songs about firbolgs?”

  I considered the question, but I couldn’t think of one. I knew songs about Elves, Dwarves, giants, kobolds; but nothing about firbolgs came to mind.

  “You know, I don’t believe I do. I can’t think of one.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Highview nodded. “I thought as much. You know, I’m not satisfied with my name.”

  “Highview,” Liatris said. “Not this.”

  “But it’s true,” he said. “And there’s a fine example of it, beloved. This man here is a musician. From the wider world.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “You’re not satisfied with ‘Highview?’ What’s wrong with that?”

  “No, our name. Firbolgs, firbolg. We’ll never get anywhere with it.”

  “Not get anywhere?”

  “We shall not.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Because it doesn’t rhyme with anything.”

  I didn’t expect that. I looked at Freydis and Caiside, and then Liatris, and then back at Highview.

  “And that means,” he continued, “no one will ever write epic verse about us. We won’t be in poems, won’t be in songs.”

  “I don’t think that’s true at all,” I said.

  “But you’re a musician,” he answered, “and you couldn’t think of one. You know hundreds of songs, I’m sure.”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “Well, no, I still haven’t thought of a song about your kind,” I had to admit. “But a lot rhymes with firbolg. Bold. Gold. Old, sold, holed. All sorts of things rhyme.”

  “And this very wold,” Freydis added.

  “Those aren’t real rhymes, though,” he said. “They don’t end in G.”

  “Come on,” I said. “They’re close enough.”

  He shook his head. “No. A true rhyme has to end in the same consonant. Those other words you listed there would be worse than nothing. Nearly shameful to put in as a rhyme.”

  “Highview,” I said. “That’s just an impossibly harsh standard.”

  “No, I have to agree with him,” Caiside said. “I mean, honestly. A poet shouldn’t be relying on different consonants.”

  I glowered at her, although she seemed not to notice. I couldn’t believe she was agreeing as our giant host told us how undervalued he felt. She didn’t notice my glare, but Freydis helped:

  “But Caiside,” she said, “you yourself have sung verses to us without these strict rhymes you’re talking about. Do you remember the one about Flicker and his lost kobold? That was yours, and it went something like – well, I know I have rhymes you used right, at least:”

  You were thirteen, maybe twelve?

  You hid it well, and asked no help.

  He guessed you thought that no one knew

  you took it in and gave it food.

  “Neither of those use the same consonants, but they work,” Freydis finished.

  “Well, I didn’t claim to be composing an epic song that would be passed down through the ages,” Caiside objected.

  “But it has been remembered, we see,” I said. “Well, Highview. I think firbolg is a fine name, but is there something else you’d rather be called?”

  “Yes!” he said. He had been rather slumping before the fire, but now straightened. “Giants of the Pine. That would rhyme with so much. Fine, shine, genuine, ursine. Don’t you think?”

  “Highview,” Liatris said, “you are a legend here in the wold already. Under any name.”

  “Well, and you are too,” he answered her. “People should write songs about you before they do me, regardless.”

  He turned back to us.

  “About that song of Caiside’s, now,” Highview asked. “You hid a lost kobold when you were a boy?”

  “He did,” Freydis said. “Or he thought he did. It was slipping away from its owners – Dwarves – and he concealed it on his farm. From them, at least. I knew where it was.”

  “A very kind thing,” Highview said. “Did it evade its masters for good?”

  “I believe so,” I said. “I set it out on a river, on a raft at night. It should have made it away.”

  “Highview,” Liatris said then. “Why don’t we offer lage to our guests?”

  “We should,” he agreed, and he stood to walk to the house.

  “Thank you for supporting our firbolg name,” she said to us when he was inside. “Highview gets unreasonably concerned about that.”

  “It’s the least we can do in return for your hospitality,” I said. “And I really do believe that firbolg is a noble word.”

  Highview came back to the fire circle holding a small cask under his arm, and carrying five clay mugs. Actually, now that I looked closer, I realized that the cask was actually quite a good size; it just appeared smaller than it was since it fit easily beneath his giant arm.

  “We call this lage,” he told us, “as Liatris said. A good drink around a blaze.” He poured out a deep mug for each of us.

  It was firewater; not so strong as to be hard to drink, but close. I had to hold my cup with both hands, it was so large, and I knew there was no way I would be able to finish it.

  Caiside, meanwhile, took a very long swig from hers.

  “Another thing I wonder about,” she said. “We have a musician here; and Highview, sir, you clearly value poetry. What do we think about ideas stretched between lines, or parts of lines? To make the rhyme work? Like some of those verses the korreds sang to us:”

  We hear tales of folks in Enkel

  Kanindal, who have no horde

  of dunters who will try to crush them; nor wolves that will plot to flush them

  out – we guess they’re all quite bored!

  “Mmm,” Highview said, shaking his head. “I know this habit. I’m afraid it betrays a lack of diligence. And three times in just one verse, there?” He shook his head again. "Those words are just falling every which way."

  “I can’t approve of that,” Liatris agreed.

  “Composers need to try harder,” Freydis chimed in, and I couldn’t help but agree myself.

  “I was surprised at those korreds, for that,” I said. “You would really expect better of them.”

  “Let’s sing their washing song for Highview and Liatris!” Caiside blurted. “That one was quite good, I thought! And my friend Highview, could I trouble you for another mug of my fill?”

  .

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