4. Piano Man, Play Me a Distraction

Chapter 4

Piano Man, Play Me a Distraction

The pub was what I'd expected and maybe even a bit better. I caught up with Nylian at the bottom of the stairs and we strolled into the large, crowded room. The bald, frowning bartender behind the long bar gave us a scowl as he shoved a tankard of ale in front of a man slumped on his stool but said nothing. A fire danced in the enormous hearth, keeping warm a giant black cauldron that put out a steady smell of hearty stew over the stench of body odor and old ale. A few lit candles dotted the walls, but mostly shadows filled the room, as if the occupants preferred not to be too visible to outsiders. Antlers and stuffed animal heads covered the walls as decoration, but there wasn't much else to lend this place any charm.

What surprised me was the stage that stood at the far end of the room with an old upright piano and an assortment of instruments. Maybe this tavern was the center for entertainment and culture for Misty Pass, allowing for the occasional traveling minstrel or bard to ply their trade here for some coins and a hot meal. My hopes briefly lifted that I might see some of this entertainment, but a peek over at my companion reminded me that there were other things that needed my attention.

Nylian deftly navigated his way through the tables loaded with people. Some were playing cards, others were telling stories over their alcohol, and a few were shoveling thick stew into their mouths without looking up, content to keep their noses out of the business of others. He settled at a table near a dark corner, dropping into the seat that put his back to the wall and gave him an excellent view of most of the floor.

As I was claiming the seat across from him, a barmaid with curly red hair and a smattering of freckles across her cheeks appeared at my elbow.

"Been a while since I've seen your kind around these parts," she announced, her eyes sweeping over Nylian before giving me a quick glance.

"I'm only passing through. What are you serving tonight?" Nylian replied.

"We've got a wild boar stew and the cook's special pot pie."

"Two bowls of your stew and a bottle of wine, please."

I stared at the elf. Not even going to allow me to order for myself.

When the barmaid disappeared, Nylian leaned toward me. "The stew is most likely fresh, made with something that was killed today. Anytime a tavern offers something in a pie or calls it special, they've scraped together whatever hasn't sold from the previous day."

"You make it sound like you travel a great deal," I said.

"And you don't remember shit. This is the last free lesson you're getting from me." Nylian leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his stomach. "Tomorrow, we go our separate ways. I'll leave you with enough money to pay for a few nights at this inn and food. Judging by your clothing, I'm sure there are people searching for you even as we speak."

"Maybe, but how do you know that I'm not on the run from something? It might be safer for me if those people didn't find me." I countered.

"That sounds very much like a you problem. I've got enough problems of my own."

"And maybe I can help you with your problems," I pressed, infusing my words with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. Nylian opened his mouth to argue, but I held up a hand, stopping him. "Look, I know I'm a hindrance, but I'm sure my memory will return soon. In the meantime, I can help watch your back. Give you a hand with things. It's got to be easier to travel with someone there to help than to do everything alone."

Nylian clenched his teeth and quietly bit out, "I can handle things on my own."

"Oh, I'm sure you can, but why do that if you don't have to?"

The return of the barmaid with our food and wine halted our conversation. The stew smelled better than it looked. It was clear it had been bubbling away in that giant metal pot all day so that it was now reduced to a thick brown substance that was becoming more solid than liquid. I took a test bite, which sent me scrambling for my cup of wine. The alcohol was tart and strong, but it did a great job of stealing away the scalding heat from my tongue. As the pain faded, I caught the slightest hint of a smile lifting the corners of Nylian's mouth as he picked at his bowl of meaty lava.

"See! You'd be so bored on your journey without me." I pointed my spoon at him, and Nylian's face returned to its usual blank stare. "We've already had a fun adventure with that crazy healer, and it could very well be your fault that my soul has been knocked out of whack."

"I am not accepting responsibility for that," Nylian argued.

"Sure, but you never know what exciting new thing I can bring to your journey. It'll be fun, plus I can be helpful."

"Helpful? You? The man who can't remember how to ride a horse?" Nylian's left eyebrow inched higher and higher up his forehead with every question. "Do you even remember how to use that sword you carry around?"

"It's coming back to me, I swear it. I'll be helpful in unexpected ways."

Nylian pushed his nearly empty bowl into the center of the table and picked up his cup but didn't drink from it, his eyes narrowing on me. He said nothing as I inhaled my stew now that it had cooled enough that it could be eaten without giving me second- and third-degree burns.

"Why are you so eager to travel with me?" he inquired.

"Maybe I like you," I said, and we both gave a snort of laughter. Yeah, neither of us believed that. "Okay, how about I feel indebted to you?" I dropped my spoon into my empty bowl and pushed it aside. I picked up the wine bottle, refilled Nylian's cup, and splashed more into my own. "You could have left me for dead in the forest, but you didn't. Instead, you brought me to Misty Pass, took me to a healer. You even got me a room at an inn and a meal. I know you could have disappeared the moment I turned my head, leaving me alone, but you didn't. You stayed." I lifted my cup to him and grinned. "I've gotta repay that generosity."

Lifting his cup to his lips, Nylian took a slow, deep drink without ever moving his eyes from my face. I smiled at him, waiting for him to declare bullshit. "There's nothing to repay," he announced when he lowered his cup to the table.

I snatched up the wine bottle again and replenished his supply. Maybe if I could get him tipsy, he'd be more agreeable. Not that I was counting on that course of action. It would be my luck that he could drink even the stoutest, most hardcore alcoholic under the table.

"There is. My conscience won't allow me to let it be forgotten. And let's not overlook that you need help. I know that I'm not your first choice, but I don't see anyone else lining up to give you a hand."

Nylian's full lips pressed into a hard line, and he appeared as if he were about to smash that wine bottle over my head. "So, my only assistance in the world is a man who doesn't know where he came from, how he got here, or where he was going. You can't ride a horse, and I seriously doubt you can use a sword." He huffed a bitter, almost soundless laugh. "You're useless and destined to hold me back. Yeah, that sounds like my luck."

My big mouth was not helping my cause, but I had to keep pushing forward. "I might be useless in the typical ways, but I think I can prove helpful in unexpected ways. You never know."

"Do you even listen to the nonsense that's coming out of your mouth?"

I grinned at my companion. "Not generally. It slows me down." I took a deep drink of my wine. Between the scalding stew and the bitter wine, my tastebuds were dead now. I refilled my glass and shook the empty bottle at the elf. "My first useful task is to get us another bottle of wine. You sit here and think about how nice it would be to have an amusing, useful friend along on this journey rather than endless days of unrelenting silence and boredom."

With a hop, I was out of my seat and winding my way through the tavern, between the crowded tables. Most of the customers were crusty and rough men in coarse clothes or leather armor, drinking and cursing. However, there were a good number of women among them in leathers, with swords and knives at their sides. Jack would have been at home here, cursing, drinking, and laughing loudly. Georgie wouldn't have cared for it, but she would have braved it for her girlfriend.

A pang of longing echoed through my chest for them. I wasn't as close to Jack as I was to Georgie, but they were both my friends. Did they think I was dead? Were they hurting right now for me? Or was Georgie cursing my name because I flaked on our lunch date? If I had to choose, I would prefer to think she was angry at me. As soon as I found my way home, I'd spend the rest of my life making it up to her and Jack. I'd become an outdoor human who socialized and walked in the sunlight.

Thankfully, I had no other family to worry over me since my mom had died. My dad had disappeared from my life before I was even born, and I had no siblings to speak of.

Did my readers even care that I was missing? Well, probably not so much about me, but more about the lack of daily updates to my story. It was likely I'd been fricasseed online for my extended absence. They were going to hate me even more when I returned and changed my story completely. Things were not at all working out the way I'd originally plotted them.

But for now, I was stuck here, and I needed to make the best of it.

At the bar, I ordered another bottle of wine and paid, being careful not to use the cursed coin.

Turning back, I started toward the table I shared with Nylian, but I didn't get more than a few steps. The elf had disappeared. Not from the room. From sight. He was lost somewhere behind a crowd of eight gigantic men who were surrounding our table.

Heart in my throat, I edged closer, trying to ignore the sudden weakness in my knees. My stomach twisted, stirring up the bad wine and overcooked stew I'd dumped in there to make a very toxic combination. When I was a few feet away, half-hidden behind a support beam, I could make out what the ringleader was saying over the general chatter of the gathered crowd.

"Your kind aren't welcome in Misty Pass. Who do you think you are, coming through here, eating our food?" the man snarled. "Misty Pass belongs to Edros. It belongs to the humans. It's never going to be part of Wolfrest."

I couldn't see Nylian through the press of meaty human flesh, but the elf didn't say a word.

"You know, Butch," interjected a weaselly voice near the leader. "I heard that the elf king of Wolfrest kicked out one of the princes because he killed his brother. How do we know he's not that exiled prince? Wouldn't we be doing the royal family a favor by getting rid of him?"

"I'm not interested in doing any elf a favor," Butch snapped. There was a heavy pause, and I swallowed hard. "But our town don't need no killers running around. Getting rid of this elf would make everyone safer."

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Nylian was a skilled fighter, but he was surrounded and outnumbered. Of course, I'd try to help him, but as he'd so eloquently pointed out, I was useless with a sword. I didn't want to test this body's muscle memory when it came to fighting under these circumstances. The surrounding crowd had noticed something was wrong. There had to be at least forty people in this tavern. If a fight broke out, it was going to be pure chaos. I needed to come up with a distraction that dissolved the tension in an instant and created an opening for Nylian to escape.

My gaze searched the room for options and landed on the piano. A whine escaped my throat and my shoulders slumped. Really? This was my best option? The ghost of my sweet mother was clapping and crowing about how those years of piano lessons were finally going to pay off.

I cut across the room as fast as I could manage, jumped onto the stage, slammed the wine bottle I was still carrying on the top of the piano, and slid onto the small stool. My fingers danced across the black and yellowish-white keys, causing my eye to twitch in a few places as several of the notes were painfully off-key. At least the damn thing worked.

The noise in the room dropped in half with those few notes, but it wasn't enough. I needed everyone's complete attention. While my fingers aimlessly wandered across the keys, I frantically riffled through the list of songs that I could recall. It had been years since I'd played anything. The only reason I'd kept up with my piano playing in high school and college had been to impress girls. That meant my collection of memorized songs were ballads or silly, fun songs. Now was not the time for "November Rain." This didn't seem like a weepy-ballad crowd, and it wasn't nearly as impressive without Slash here to back me up with a kickass guitar solo.

No, I settled on a song that was a lively drinking song that these people could probably relate to. I'd have to pray they could overlook the words that would mean nothing to them, like "movie star" and "microphone."

After sending up a silent prayer for Billy Joel and his lawyers to never hear about my terrible cover, I lifted my voice above the last of the talking while picking out the opening notes.

"Good evening! I hope you don't mind me singing you an old song that's unique to my hometown, but I thought we could all use some entertainment."

I fell into the song with more gusto than skill, grateful that my usually useless brain continued to hold all the lyrics to this song while I couldn't remember anything that resembled important names, dates, phone numbers, and other necessities of life. The crowd grew quieter as I made it through the first verse and chorus. By the second set of la's and chorus, people sang along with me.

This was crazy. They liked it! They really liked the song. Geez, these people were desperate for any kind of entertainment if they were willing to put up with my lackluster singing voice and fumbling fingers. My heart flipped over and heat suffused my cheeks as my fear for Nylian faded. They were all watching and singing now. Fingers danced with more skill than I thought they possessed, and no one seemed to care that the piano was horribly out of key. We were all singing at the tops of our lungs at each chorus.

Okay, so maybe this was why Billy had written this song. I got it now. The immediate gratification and feedback were addictive.

But was it so different from why I wrote books? To bring together people, make them forget about their troubles, and let them escape into something beautiful, if only for a minute?

The song itself was just over five minutes long, but it felt like it all passed in the blink of an eye. As I played the last few notes, I briefly considered slipping into some "Sweet Caroline," but I doubted I'd get the same response out of these people as it would most Americans. Besides, distraction achieved, I hoped.

Jumping up from my seat, I twisted to find all the men who'd been harassing Nylian were watching me, and Nylian's seat was now empty. The elf had escaped!

I snagged the bottle of wine and held it over my head in triumph, basking for a heartbeat in the thunderous applause and demands for another song. But there would be no encore. If Nylian was smart, he'd be making a break for it right now and I couldn't let the elf ditch me.

"Thanks so much!" I shouted above the roar while running for what appeared to be a back door out of the place.

My steps came to a sharp halt as I plunged into the darkness behind the inn. I blinked a few times, trying to adjust my eyes to the thin light coming from the moon and some of the surrounding buildings. Now what? Circle to the front of the building and sneak up the stairs to our rooms? Was there a chance Nylian was still in his room, grabbing his shit?

Nah, the elf had to be faster than that.

But my cloak and sword were in my room. Two things I couldn't afford to leave behind, even if I didn't know how to swing a sword. The growing chill of the night was nipping through my clothes, proving that my cloak was going to be sorely missed if I tried to chase after Nylian without it. However, every delay meant Nylian was putting more and more distance between us.

" Psssttt …"

A harsh hiss had me jumping and twisting about, half expecting to see a giant python behind me. What I got was still enough to stop my heart. Nylian peered out of the shadows at me, frantically waving me toward the stables. The elf had waited!

I barely held in a triumphant shout as I ran across the yard to the stables that were dimly lit with an old oil lantern.

As I reached Nylian's side, he shoved the reins into my hand of a chestnut-brown horse I'd not seen before. "Get on," my friend ordered.

"Where did you?—"

"He belongs to the man who picked a fight," Nylian interrupted.

"But my stuff."

"Tied it to the horse. Now get on, or I'm leaving you behind."

Yep, no more time to argue. The distraction I'd provided was dwindling with each passing second. Those men were likely to search for Nylian soon, and it was better if we were away from here as quickly as possible.

With no help, I hauled my ass into the saddle, silently thanking what fates may be that I'd been shunted into a body with some pretty awesome muscles. I tried to remind Nylian of my pathetic riding skills, but it wasn't necessary. He'd already tied my horse to his. All I needed to do was hang on.

We burst out of the stable and down the street while I desperately clung to the saddle horn and squeezed the horse with my thighs. The fresh horse didn't seem to mind. It raced after Nylian as though he knew what he was doing. A few shouts followed us out of town, but I didn't dare risk looking over my shoulder. I was too likely to fall off the horse and break my neck.

As we passed the last building on main street, the cold wind whipping my hair and biting at my face, my brain finally conjured up the reason Misty Pass sounded so familiar to me.

In Betrayal of the Elf Prince , Nylian had stopped for the night in the town. He'd even stayed the night at that inn, where he'd run into trouble with eight oversized, angry humans. And despite his best efforts, the elf had gotten his ass kicked.

Yay, I saved him from getting beaten to a pulp.

However, that ass-kicking had led to him being nursed back to health by a gorgeous young woman by the name of Mercy. She'd hidden Nylian from her father and when the elf was on his feet, that strong, courageous, compassionate woman had agreed to join Nylian on his quest, eventually becoming the first consort in his harem.

Now he would never meet Mercy.

He would never fall in love with her.

"Shit!" I hissed.

"What's wrong?" Nylian demanded, glancing over his shoulder at me.

"Uh…nothing. I-I just remembered…we forgot that medicine the healer made me."

"Ha!" The wind nearly carried away Nylian's sharp laugh. "Like you were ever going to take that."

Okay, that was true. I had no intention of applying a single poultice or sprinkling any of that powder in my tea. No great loss. Only a waste of Nylian's money.

The more important thing was that Nylian wasn't hurt, and we'd escaped without a problem. He'd even waited for me.

No, this wasn't a big deal. So what if there was one less woman in his harem? There were still plenty of others for Nylian to meet. I could still fix this.