“The Leprechaun Finch” from Rift Invasion
After a few strokes from his mighty wings, Blackwing was at the opposite end of the Arcade and landing in front of a cloth-draped boulder situated in a well-lit nook near the far exit. Gia, nervously glancing around, landed just behind her master— remaining on her toes, ready to sprint into the air if need be.
Unlike the rest of the Arcade, with its dim torches few and far between, the nook was illuminated by particularly bright torches, and it was easy for Gia to discern that the cloth draped over the boulder, which stood as high as Blackwing’s pouch-covered belt, was a young-fruit green.
Behind the boulder, and not at first noticed by Gia, sat a small male on a large stool. He wore a green vest over a yellowish long-sleeve shirt, the vest stretching over his formidable belly and held closed by three golden buckles. His shirt-sleeves billowed out softly from beneath the vest and were captured above his elbows by green bands. On his head, which was somewhat large for his body, sat a green, rumpled hat, with a lone, yellow feather stuck in one side. His face was broad, as was his slightly crooked nose. Though he wore no accompanying moustache, he wore a full, red beard. His bushy eyebrows were the same bright red as the thick hairs covering his chin.
Beside him, Gia noticed, propped in a cranny, a gnarled stick, just about the right height to be the diminutive male’s walking stick. Gia then realized she was face to face with a Leprechaun and that the walking stick was his Shalaylee. She suddenly recollected fuzzy memories of Leprechaun delegations visiting Florin when she was very young and the periodic visits by Leprechaun mountebanks who, in the past, had visited Florin peddling their tonics and elixirs— but she had never been allowed close to either sort. In fact, this was the closest she had ever been to a Leprechaun. The day was quickly becoming the most exciting of Gia’s life— of course, for Gia lately, “exciting” had meant finding a scarf she had lost or staying up past nightfall.
Sensing someone was staring at her, Gia looked over her shoulder as she fluttered behind her master and noticed that a young male with a red hat and gold-trimmed, royal blue wings had begun paying attention to them. Thin, with blond hair halfway to his shoulders, he was playing some sort of game with a few other boys flying near him. The other boys were tossing large rocks back and forth, back and forth. As they tossed the rocks, the boy with the red hat tried to hit the rocks with his own, hurled rock. Each time the rocks collided, their explosion would echo from the walls. The boy aiming at the rocks had not missed once since Gia had taken note of him.
Hmpph, she thought; a skill, yes; but has there ever been a more useless skill?
When the Leprechaun saw Blackwing touch down, he leaned up and placed his thick fingers upon the green cloth covering the boulder, his movements quick and noticeably awkward.
“Greetingz Blackving,” he said over his red beard, “Do vat do vee owe dee honor?”
While he spoke, he looked not at Blackwing, but down at his own fingers, which were now drumming upon the cloth.
“Finch,” said Blackwing, resting on one elbow placed atop the boulder, “How’s business?”
“Kidz,” said Finch, rolling his green eyes and swaying sideways atop his tall stool, “Ya know how diz. Dey doo loud, doo proud— and doo many of ‘em.”
For the first time, Finch met Blackwing’s gaze directly, but then immediately turned his glance away again. His fingers stopped their drumming. He seemed to Gia to be looking toward the nearest exit as if he were expecting someone.
“I vager ya dain come here for da necdar,” he said in his foreign accent of rolling r’s and “d”-sounding “t’s,” and with “v’s” serving in place of “w’s.”
“You’ve always been a keen one, Finch,” Blackwing said, leaning closer, both his elbows now on top of the boulder. “I need you to… procure a certain something for me.”
Finch leaned back on his stool against the rock wall behind him, lacing his stubby fingers across his belly and resting them between the two lower golden buckles. He looked again toward the tunnel’s nearby exit.
“Blackwing… Ya know I godd oud of dat kind of bidnezz, long dime go.”
“No, I didn’t catch wind of that, Finch. Is that so?”
“Dah, dah. Dat ancien hizdory, dat crazy zhduff,” Finch protested, “I’m doo old for dhat zhtuff, now, Blackving. I’m clean now. Very, very clean. Like mountaindop zhpring.”
Finch glanced up from under his bushy red eyebrows as Blackwing took a step back from the boulder. Gia saw now that there was a symbol emblazoned on the cloth. It was of a rainbow-colored ring piercing a golden sun, golden drops dripping down from the pierced sunspot, most of the drops caught by a fat pot set below, wherein the drops took on the look of gold coins.
“I see…” said Blackwing. “Well then, maybe you could just keep your ears open for me about something.”
Finch shrugged, looking off into the orange-lit Arcade behind his visitors.
“Dere’z no law again havin dee open earz now, iz dey? “
“No,” Blackwing said, stepping closer again, “No, there’s not Finch. No law at all.”
The two males stared at each other for a moment. The young male with the gold and blue wings who had been aiming at the tossed rocks a few moments ago, now came over. Gia noticed he was not much older than herself, with a wide face and with cheeks, in spite of his skinniness, rounded and full. His hair was blond and swung softly above the shoulders of his tight red shirt. Atop his head he wore a red hat that slouched itself into an upward pointing isosceles triangle, if isosceles triangles had caved-in legs. He nodded at Gia as the glance from his wide, dark blue eyes passed over her, but he looked a double-take at Blackwing. Something about Blackwing had surprised him, maybe even unnerved him— something beyond Blackwing’s unusual appearance. Gia watched the young male compose himself quickly before speaking.
“Hi ya, Chief,” said the boy to Blackwing.
Blackwing eyed the boy for a moment, making neither sign nor sound of response, and turned back toward Finch.
“Let’s say I’ve lost a certain something, Finch,” continued Blackwing, “and I need to get it back.”
Finch nodded, unlacing his fingers and leaning closer.
Blackwing continued. “Let’s say… let’s say it was an heirloom. Been in the family for years—“
“Heirlooms?” the young man interjected, “Centaurs don’t even have clothes to hand down, much less heirlooms.”
Gia glanced at her master from the corner of her eye and saw him shoot the boy a hard look before conquering some anger inside himself and allowing a smile to spread between the bound ends of his dark moustache. Gia knew that it was common knowledge that the Centaur family which had unofficially adopted the infant Blackwing was the only family Blackwing had ever known. In those days, Gia had been told, the Centaurs were not welcomed into Florin society. Having been forced to migrate to the plains below the Florinian Mesa by some mysterious catastrophe in their homeland, the Centaurs had been resented as barbaric intruders. The old rumors of Centaur atrocities reemerged and spread like wildfire through the town. Legend had it, for example, that Centaurs, for some dark reason, had a perpetual shortage of females in their communities. Many Florinians feared that the Centaurs would come charging into the town one day and carry off half their females— as the old stories told of the males doing periodically. This, of course, never happened, and over time, a symbiotic relationship had developed between the strong ground-galloping Centaurs and the physically weak, air-traveling Fairfolk, much of the credit for the rapprochement due to Waldin the Wise, who valued greatly the ancient and learned Centaur culture. Gia got the impression that the red-hatted male whad been trying to hurt Blackwing by his remark about the poverty of Centuars. Maybe he was hoping to sadden Blackwing by reminding him of his orphan status; or, maybe he was trying to shame Blackwing, since many in Florin still looked down upon the Centaurs. Because of this remark about her master’s adopted family— and perhaps more so because of the tone and look which had accompanied it— Gia took an immediate dislike to the young male.
After a brief pause, Blackwing spoke, but to Finch and not the boy:
“The item would be of purely sentimental value, Finch. No real cash value at all, of course.”
“Of courze,” said Finch, bringing down his bushy red eyebrows and throwing an angry look at the young male who had interrupted his discussion with the dark Fairfolk.
“The item in question is a windvane,” Blackwing continued, “broken.”
“Broken?” said Finch, his red eyebrows rising.
“Yes,” said Blackwing, “it would never point with the wind.”
“I zhee.”
“Above the arrow, there is a Nightsucker statuette. Below the arrow is a set of panpipes.”
“Led me ged diz zdrate,” said Finch, “Ve are dalkin bout an old, broken Niedzucker vinvane— vid panpipe?”
“Like I said, a purely sentimental treasure.”
“Uh-hum,” said Finch, examining the ceiling with a glance.
“Now, Finch… If someone were to find this item for me, in good shape…”
“Dah?” Finch was leaning forward now, staring directly at Blackwing.
“I would be thankful.”
“Dankful?” Finch asked, deflated.
“Very dankful,” Blackwing said, mocking Finch’s accent.
“How dankful?”
“A painting,” said Blackwing in a low tone.
“A painding! And I dought you vere to be dankful!”
Finch slapped the draped boulder and leaned back, crossing his arms and staring toward the exit. Daylight was only a few feet away, and, for Gia at least, it was beckoning fiercely. Annoyed, she watched as the young male with the tight red shirt, oblivious to his unwanted intrusion, edged in a little closer to the boulder, fluttering his gold-laced, royal blue wings just enough to keep him floating behind the green-garbed stone and next to Finch.
“One from what people call my Varno period,” said Blackwing with a tilt of his head and a raise of an eyebrow.
Finch coughed suddenly, licked his lips above his red beard, and swallowed hard.
“Bud, bud… Evrybody know you looze dee Varnoz in dee grade firez.”
“I lost most of the Varnos during the Great Fire. Most.”
Finch uncrossed his arms and began to slowly caress the top of the green cloth with small circles of his index finger.
“ ‘Da Baeding Party’?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Blackwing, “I think ‘The Bathing Party’ is alive and well.”
Finch sucked air quickly through his lips, and then abruptly began dusting off the top of the cloth with sweeping motions of his hand.
“If I hear of diz… Veddervane… Vere can I find you, Blackving?”
“If you hear of it, you must hear of it quickly, Finch. This offer expires when the day does.”
“I hear dingz very quickly zometimez, very quickly. Dee oddezt information juz fall in our lapz around here. Doand it, Dahmil?”
“Yeah, boss. We have some very active laps around here,” Dahmil replied, looking Gia up and down.
“Good,” said Blackwing to Finch. “Well then, when it turns up, send word to Shey Grumnee. We will—“
“The Zhey!” barked Finch, “Vhat iz diz? Zome kind of zet-up?”
“Relax, Finchy,” Blackwing said, rising up into the air as his large, black wings began to beat, “I wouldn’t waste my time trying to entrap some petty purveyor as yourself. My apprentice and I are going to visit the Commander for reasons of our own. But now, in spite of the wonderful welcome we’ve encountered so far in your Arcade, we must be off. I hope you’ll help me. Good fortune to you.”
Gia turned and followed her master toward the closest tunnel exit, the one on the opposite side of the archway through which they had entered the Arcade. As they approached the bright light of the exit, Gia stopped and hovered in front of the wall. Here, where the indirect sunlight intruded, someone had painted a mural unlike anything she had ever seen. It was not a picture of anything— and yet, it was. There were reds and blacks splashed in spiraling shapes: Anger. There were deep blues, deep enough for swimming, for drowning— with undulations of purple and black: Sadness. At the corner— well, there was no true corner (the mural just sort of faded away at various locations)— but in the top right portion of the painting, there was a hint of light— moonlight gleams of silver: Hope? And there— there in the middle— did those lines make a door?— a door with a hole— not a window, but a rough and jagged hole. Was it a hole punctured from within or without? or somehow both? Was this: Escape? But escape from what?
She backflapped a little ways to try to gain perspective on the work, but it was too massive, and not just physically, but artistically… mentally. She realized immediately that no matter how far she retreated, she could not absorb all of this amazing, bizarre painting at once; it would take multiple viewings— multiple, concentrated, open-minded, open-hearted viewings. It was the sort of artwork which would absorb her more than she could ever absorb it. It was something entirely new to her— and it hit her and awakened her like a slap across the face.
“Master…” she called in a voice sputtering-out in a whisper.
Blackwing turned and flew back to her. Gia pointed toward the mural with a loose-fingered gesture.
“Isn’t it…” she began, “beyond words?”
Blackwing huffed through a frown, the tied ends of his black moustache drooping. “I could think of a few words to describe it.”
“It’s so vibrant, so… raw!”
“Raw, yes,” Blackwing said. “Or more precisely… unfinished. Full of untapped potential. The wrong colors entirely are placed side by side as if they belonged in the same room, much less in the same painting. And where is the shadow work? Stark colors jammed inside black-slash outlines. Nothing in Nature ends so abruptly, Apprentice. In Nature, all is gradation.”
Normally, Gia would have answered, “Yes, Master,” at this point, but this time she could not bring herself voice agreement. The painting had touched her; it had more than touched her, it had moved her, shoved her. For the first time in her apprenticeship, Gia wondered if she was seeing something of value in a work of art which even her master could not discern.
“Come, Pupil,” Blackwing said, turning. “Let us bring our important news to the Shey.”
Reluctantly, Gia followed him out into the light. In the excitement of Arcade, Gia had almost forgotten about the dead Griffin back in the Pristine Cathedral. As she and her master entered the street outside the Arcade and continued on toward Castle Redrock, Gia ventured beside Blackwing to ask a question.
“Who was that boy, Master?” she asked.
“What boy? Dahmil?”
“Maybe. With the blue and gold wings and that silly looking red hat?”
“Yes, yes. That was Dahmil.”
“Who is he?” Gia asked, trying not to sound very interested, and in her attempt, sounding extremely so.
“He was once an apprentice of mine, like you,” Blackwing said. “But not like you at all. Oh, he was not a bad artist, but he did not love Art enough. Without that Love to sustain him, the discipline of the craft became a burden he could not bear. One day, he ran away from his apprenticeship. Eventually, as you’ve just seen, he found a new master.”
“Finch,” said Gia disdainfully, casting a glance over her shoulder in the direction of the Arcade.
Blackwing nodded.
“Well, he certainly traded down, Master.”
“Well, Apprentice, each bird must find its own flock. I cannot blame a carrion-chick for preferring the company of buzzards to that of an old rooster.”
“So… he’s bad then,” Gia said.
“Bad? What is bad? Dahmil broke the vows of apprenticeship. He was then shunned by polite society, which probably helped drive him to Finch. But is it really so bad to take one’s self out of a situation which one finds unenjoyable?”
“But he broke his word. Wasted years of your time, Master.”
“Perhaps not wasted,” Blackwing said thoughtfully, glancing back at the tunnel exit where the Gia had seen the fascinating mural. “Perhaps not entirely.”
Zephyr Dorsey 