From the bar, Alain notices the staff shrinking and distorting, and the man looking around the room with the avid interest of a newcomer. The distrust of magic he learned well in life has faded a lot here, but there are still remnants of it. And that sort of magic, at least, is much more like Mid-World's than many at Milliways.
Worth keeping an eye on him either way, perhaps, in help for a new person or in monitoring a magician.
So he smiles politely at the older man, and says, "Long days and pleasant nights, sai."
Prospero glances to his side, at the young man with the fair hair and the pleasant smile. His accent is strange, but not unpleasant to the ear. Prospero smiles back, the very picture of civility and grace. He rises from his seat and touches his fingers to the crown of his head.
"Well met, sir," he replies. He sketches a bow. "Prospero, formerly of Milan."
Alain rises as well, and bows politely over an outstretched leg, in the style of Gilead where he spent his life, tapping his chest three times rapidly with the fingers of his left hand. Manners for manners, after all, and he learned them well in court.
"Alain Johns, of Gilead. We're well-met indeed, I hope."
He's a tall man of about 24, broad-shouldered and tending just a little towards stockiness, with a round friendly face. He's wearing jeans and a blue chambray shirt, with two huge revolvers strapped around his waist. He wears them with the unconscious ease of someone who wears his gunbelts every waking hour, which is pretty much the case.
The older man's accent and clothing are strange to his eyes, but he's seen far stranger here, and his clothes and manners are not entirely unlike those of some of the courtiers in Gilead-That-Was.
Prospero is surprised, a little, by how elaborate Alain's greeting is in its execution, but he keeps that sentiment well in hand. The flash of metal at Alain's waist does not go unnoticed, and Prospero puts that thought away for future consideration. Such strange powerful devices, here...
He gestures at his table, where his cheese and bread lie half out of his pack.
"Sir, might I interest you in some minor repast? I fear that my sack does provide rough cheese and bread, but I'll share it if you'll have it--and, if it please you, I'd hear of your Gilead, too, as no atlas of mine marks that upon its breadth."
And Alain didn't even do any flourishes. Though he's far more casual in the normal course of things, and may well be next time.
He smiles, coming over to the table.
"Thankee-sai, but I've just finished my meal. But I'd gladly sit and hold palaver with you, and hear of your Milan if you'd tell."
He has just finished his dinner. He also is wary of breaking bread with a strange magician here, but there's no reason for rudeness or any show of that wariness. Good magicians as well as bad, here.
Palaver? A contortion of that article of Portuguese? Prospero makes note to consider later whether that little country ever did call a province of Gilead as its own
( ... )
Prospero's language is as formal and archaic as that in any tale of Arthur Eld, but it sounds natural on his lips, and has a tale-spinner's rhythm to it. And the words may be unfamiliar, a few of them, but the sentiment is deeply familiar. He can't help but smile, listening.
Softly, "She sounds a marvel, sai, and your tale makes me wish I could."
"Marvel, indeed," Prospero agrees. "Even when ill airs descend upon her, she keeps strong and true." He reaches into his sack, which obligingly produces some of the dried game that he'd tucked away earlier. He tears it into small pieces, spreads them out, puts some back into the sack and chews others thoughtfully. He takes care to swallow before he says anything again.
"But there come occasions in all men's lives when they must walk unseen roads, so I've put my back to the city and stepped between. And you, sir? If I may, what brought you out? 'Twas an old man's whimsy that compelled me hence, though I do well recall the passions of my youth when the world was waiting to be traversed."
His smile turns a little crooked, when he speaks of Milan standing strong and true.
"No whimsy, though you might say I wandered the world some. A little ways, anyway, in the last few years. Nay, sai, I died, and found myself here on the way to the clearing."
A small smile, a little apologetic. Welcome to Milliways, it says. "Aye. The clearing at the end of the path -- heaven, some call it? Yes, I died. Plenty of folken here who have, and plenty who haven't."
Alain shakes his head. "I know not. A waystation, we'd call this -- a place outside the worlds, if you ken it. Outside all time, and touching all wheres and whens. There is they say a Landlord, but none have met him, nor know his mind."
"These spheres, these worlds," Prospero mutters. He's recovered somewhat, but he's still regarding the rest of the bar somewhat askance. "And this Landlord, then, be he master of that chain, to so spin and weave life and the hereafter into his tapestry? Would not a figure of such high charms be, then, that great Architect of this cosmos, the Demiurgic Principle?"
Alain reflects briefly that sai Prospero would probably get on very well with his old teacher Vannay, who taught the gunslinger 'prentices philosophy and geography and all the things a gunslinger must know that are outside the way of the gun.
He shrugs, spreading his hands. "None have spoken to him, sai, so far as I have heard. Or know aught of him but that he exists."
"I see," Prospero says slowly. A smile gentles his face, then, and those ghosts of the last of his vague apprehension are exorcised from his face. "Or perhaps, I should say, I do not see, considering that which you've just told me regarding our mysterious benefactor."
From the bar, Alain notices the staff shrinking and distorting, and the man looking around the room with the avid interest of a newcomer. The distrust of magic he learned well in life has faded a lot here, but there are still remnants of it. And that sort of magic, at least, is much more like Mid-World's than many at Milliways.
Worth keeping an eye on him either way, perhaps, in help for a new person or in monitoring a magician.
So he smiles politely at the older man, and says, "Long days and pleasant nights, sai."
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"Well met, sir," he replies. He sketches a bow. "Prospero, formerly of Milan."
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"Alain Johns, of Gilead. We're well-met indeed, I hope."
He's a tall man of about 24, broad-shouldered and tending just a little towards stockiness, with a round friendly face. He's wearing jeans and a blue chambray shirt, with two huge revolvers strapped around his waist. He wears them with the unconscious ease of someone who wears his gunbelts every waking hour, which is pretty much the case.
The older man's accent and clothing are strange to his eyes, but he's seen far stranger here, and his clothes and manners are not entirely unlike those of some of the courtiers in Gilead-That-Was.
Reply
He gestures at his table, where his cheese and bread lie half out of his pack.
"Sir, might I interest you in some minor repast? I fear that my sack does provide rough cheese and bread, but I'll share it if you'll have it--and, if it please you, I'd hear of your Gilead, too, as no atlas of mine marks that upon its breadth."
Reply
He smiles, coming over to the table.
"Thankee-sai, but I've just finished my meal. But I'd gladly sit and hold palaver with you, and hear of your Milan if you'd tell."
He has just finished his dinner. He also is wary of breaking bread with a strange magician here, but there's no reason for rudeness or any show of that wariness. Good magicians as well as bad, here.
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Prospero's language is as formal and archaic as that in any tale of Arthur Eld, but it sounds natural on his lips, and has a tale-spinner's rhythm to it. And the words may be unfamiliar, a few of them, but the sentiment is deeply familiar. He can't help but smile, listening.
Softly, "She sounds a marvel, sai, and your tale makes me wish I could."
Reply
"But there come occasions in all men's lives when they must walk unseen roads, so I've put my back to the city and stepped between. And you, sir? If I may, what brought you out? 'Twas an old man's whimsy that compelled me hence, though I do well recall the passions of my youth when the world was waiting to be traversed."
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"No whimsy, though you might say I wandered the world some. A little ways, anyway, in the last few years. Nay, sai, I died, and found myself here on the way to the clearing."
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...and then, that last bit catches up with him. "--Sir, I--begging your pardon, but my ears do mishear much. Did you say you had passed, previously?"
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"By God's wounds," he murmurs, shaking his head in disbelief. "What strange authority is this, that unravels the great chain of being so?"
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He shrugs, spreading his hands. "None have spoken to him, sai, so far as I have heard. Or know aught of him but that he exists."
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