Forbas 1

(brief bad language warning)


A door scathed open. The pair that was ejected through it came apart in midair and landed separately.

"Flaming piss-addled sponges!" the bouncer shouted at them, wiping hands on hips. She didn't remain in the street to see who won.

The wiry man rolled to his feet first. The burly one rushed him. Wiry's brain had several seconds' lead and Burly tripped over.

There was movement in an alley-mouth.

Burly got up again, flailing. Wiry danced around him, feinted once or twice. He misjudged Burly's reach, had to twist awkwardly to avoid a jab to the nose and the pair ended up grappling.

"Bah," Wiry grunted and headbutted him. Burly went down. A few kicks convinced him the view was just fine from where he was.

Forbas, the wiry one, took two neat steps back. He didn't utter any witticisms. It hadn't been that good a fight. He glanced around and bent to retrieve his mohair jacket from the ground. He supposed the scarf was -- ah, no, of course, he'd stuffed it in the pocket when he arrived. That was all right, then. No need to try to get back inside.

He heard the voice as he began to move away. Forbas cocked an ear towards the shadows. Female. Not the bouncer. Oh, definitely not. The giggle came again from the throat of the alley; enticing, inhuman.

"I know that sound," Forbas said in a singsong voice.

The giggle took flesh, extrapolated herself from the brickwork. She hadn't been hiding. She was the wall. The lovely was clothed in cobbles, bricks and pavement (or was that her bare skin? Somehow that thought was less disturbing than it ought to have been) and her lips were slate-grey and her eyes were reflective like water in the gutter, which was where Forbas's mind was quickly heading.

"You're a long way from home, country boy," said the city-nymph.

"Splinter's Grove, and I haven't been back there in sixty years," Forbas said, tugging one of his pointed ears and turning on the smile properly. "I'm Forbas. Who are you?"

"Urbana."

"Are you serious?"

"Rarely," said the nymph. "But it is what you can call me. You aren't busy this evening, are you, Forbas?"

"Mmm, that depends on the counter-offer."

The nymph shook her head and smiled like spires. He hadn't realised his pretence at diffidence had been quite that flimsy. He'd have to raise his game; if you gave nymphs an inch, they'd take... well, that was his favourite joke.

She said, "Come, Forbas. I know that's a gemshorn in your pocket. Come and play for me. I know a little place, intimate; they have wine and goat's cheese..."

"Are you trying to be funny?"

"No."

"Good. You were saying?"

"Best wine in the city and you can get as loud as you like. Play for us, Forbas. Maybe some of my sisters will be around too. You'd like that, wouldn't you? Come and dance with us, do."

"Perhaps I will. Let's go then... Urbana."

He'd left only a slight pause. She could call herself whatever she wanted. So it was like a human calling herself "Humana"; imagination wasn't one of his prerequisites, and her cobbles were very nice.

---

The cheese was good, which was surprising because Forbas was very choosy. He had seen no other nymphs, which wasn't so surprising. City-dwellers were less gregarious than their pastoral cousins. There were plenty of women, though. Forbas attracted curiosity. Glances were regularly turning to their table. Feet would follow. Curiosity, in its turn, was easily capitalised upon; all it took was for them to hear him play. Sometimes not even that.

Urbana had managed to find a place that served its wine in horns. Again he had wondered if she meant anything by it. Probably not.

The nymph rose and squeezed his hand. "I'm just going to freshen up," she said, "and when I return you can play for us. I do so want to hear you play." With a swish of stone she left the room.

Forbas drained his wine (also not bad) and stood. His little hooves tapped a tattoo on the floor tiles. He reached the counter and leaned back against it, reaching briefly down to scratch a fetlock under his leggings and enjoying the anticipation.

The dance of the sexes; that was what it came down to, every time. City rituals were more complicated, but they were dances all the same, and there wasn't a dance devised that Forbas couldn't master.

(How would the spirit of a city freshen up, anyway? He decided some mysteries feminine were best left unelucidated.)

He raised his hands to his hair and twisted two of the waxed curls up into an impression of horns -- a half-conscious mannerism that usually raised a smile, at least, from the same sort of girls who looked at his goat's legs and wondered...

It was while coolly faking disinterest in one or two of those girls that Forbas's eye fell on a poster, which press-ganged his attention such that he actually read it instead of pretending to read it.

It was a poster of the type that usually interested him (the type with a number at the bottom, the larger the better); nevertheless, Forbas would have ignored even that type of poster while he still had money left to squander.

This went beyond money, though. Beyond even women and wine. There was one of them involved.

"This recent?" he asked the host, and "Weekend last," the host sniffed.

Forbas's reaction was immediate and entirely dextrous, which, given the amount of alcohol he'd consumed here and elsewhere, said something of itself. He leapt into his coat. He slammed the correct change on the counter. He also asked if he might take the poster.

The host flapped a hand permissively and sniffed. "Are you a bounty hunter, then?" he said after a moment.

"Pays better than musicians," Forbas said, folding the paper carefully into an inside pocket. As an afterthought, he tucked in his shirt and drew the laces closed.

"Forb-- oh, you're not leaving?" said Urbana behind him. He'd forgotten about her.

"Something's come up. Work," he said distractedly.

"At this hour? Surely it can wait. Come, play for us so we can dance." Her hand was on his tail, stroking it. Forbas loved that -- usually. Such was his obsession that now it was only an irritation.

"Can't. This can't wait," he muttered.

"Oh." Her disappointment was like a pigeon swarm, a traffic jam over a river. "Another time, then? Please?"

Forbas looked directly at her. Annoyed or not, he remained cognisant that it wasn't a great idea to piss off a city; and he might well be back here, anyway (best rosés this side of the Serrae, he reminded himself, not that that's saying all that much).

"Yes. Some other time," he nodded. And smiled, genuinely at that. "I'll have something to celebrate soon. And then, Urbana, you know what? Then we'll really dance."

He trotted out into the city night, leaving the nymph nonplussed.