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Mr. Grey spent the moments immediately following the roar on the ground. The dust of the road clung to his wet robe. The suddenness of events and the shock of his ticker’s destruction left him fuddled. Everything seemed, to Mr. Grey, to reach him indirectly. Sounds came as though they'd been stuffed in a bottle and thrown to sea before reaching his ear. Every movement was that of a shadow against a wall of parchment.
First, his eye caught a lightning sprint. A jigsaw fragment of the noon sky seemed to have remained behind at the transition to dusk. This sky piece rushed from the weeds at the roadside. It leapt and landed in the midst of the bandit huddle. Its roars were muffled thunderclaps. The bandits met this thunder with their own shouts. They scattered as shadows around the sky piece.
Then the sky piece stole Gourd’s enormous scepter-hammer. Or rather, it seemed, duplicated the weapon through some enchantment. It swung the copy hammer in whirling arcs. The heavy barrel head struck the bandit-shadows. Whenever this happened Mr. Grey heard a loud smack - like a kickball hitting pavement - and watched the shadow of a bandit meld into the dusk sky. Several brigands disappeared this way. The shadows retreated from the sky fragment; as though it brought not just a piece of noon, but also the radiance. Gourd rushed in with his own hammer. The two barrel-heads struck flat against each other. Mr. Grey heard a single, sharp, instrumental, wooden clap.
Mr. Grey heard muffled sounds above. The birds with pointy beaks in the boughs of the gate hooted and cooed and rustled indignantly. They took wing en-masse, scattering in all directions. Their long bird shadows rolling over the road and hills.
The bandit shades on the ground - the ones who hadn’t been launched - joined the birds. Gourd and his crew fled. Their shadows tore away under the gate and along the road, sprinting for town.
With the disintegration of the birds’ and bandits’ shadows, the clearing shone with a second light. A resurgence before the coming sunset. The piece of noon sky lurched after the fleeing enemies. The bandits ran faster. The piece stopped and swayed in place beneath the gate. It roared with a rage to wake the not-existing. Then it fell silent, turned around, and walked back to where Mr. Grey still sat in the dirt.
The gossipy grass, and chittering crickets, and the beasts with small voices running over the ground, returned the setting to a raw hush. Mr. Grey’s confusion melted as the hammer swinging shape approached. He saw the sky piece wasn’t a sky piece at all, but a man. The man wore a robe in the local, many-folded, high-hemmed style, full of imagery. It showed a series of wooly cloud zeppelins sailing a sapphire sky. Despite its high cut, the hem of the robe was heavily stained by grass.
The man inside the garment loomed large; in the tall way, and the fat way, and the powerfully-built way, all at once. Though not quite as hairy as Gourd, his arms bore long hairs like threaded silver - visible from his rolled up sleeves. The arm hairs matched his long silver whiskers, and his balding, silver haired scalp.
This man wiped the gathered exertion from his brow with a soiled handkerchief. He stowed his hammer in its back holster. He walked up to Mr. Grey with a languorous, swingy stride, and held forth a sweaty, meaty hand to Mr. Grey.
Mr. Grey took the hand and rose. He stood rigid before the big man. He looked into the man’s ice floe eyes, wide and rich with the effort of battle. The big man looked into the matte grey eyes, also wide and rich, but with surprise.
Mr. Grey swallowed. “I’ve lost my voice it seems. Thank you, Mr.…?”
The big man in the sky robe looked at Mr. Grey for a long moment without blinking. Then, without any anger or change in expression, he shouted in Mr. Grey’s face. “MY NAME’S ONLY TOM.” He carefully emphasized each syllable.
“Would you mind not shouting? I’m not ungrateful, but I hear you perfectly,” Mr. Grey took a steadying, shallow breath. He looked about the clearing. “My name’s Mr. Grey. You did quick work on those fellows. Who were they precisely?”
After another blank moment of comprehending, Tom answered. He used a lower tone, and spoke in a growly voice, as though from a throat full of workshop sawdust. “They were road brigands.”
“Ah. I did suspect. We don’t have that sort of thing where I come from. Are they protesting?”
“...What do you mean protesting?”
“Why are they robbing people? What are they fighting?”
“Poverty, I guess.”
“And how’d you come to be here?”
“Searching the ponds for candy. The road’s never tapped.”
Mr. Grey passed over that confusing response. He remembered his pocket ticker. He stooped and lifted it from its place in the dirt. A spiderweb crack spread across the front glass; the hands bent at crooked angles; scratches and divets distorted the smooth metal case. Not even a feeble tock beat within Mr. Grey’s poor gearwork ticker.
Mr. Grey looked from the broken face. He scanned the dusty road where the bandits had disappeared. “Should we follow them?” he asked. “I mean, do you think I should? They have my treasure.”
“Those kinds run too fast. They flee soldiers and monsters. Better catch a rest.”
“But they have all my treasure. I can’t pay for food, lodgings, anything.”
After a moment, Tom shrugged. “You’re healthy; alive,” He spread his whiskers and smiled at Mr. Grey. Despite his circumstances, for a moment, Mr. Grey felt an urge to smile back.
Mr. Grey brought a dry knuckle to his lips as he brooded. Tom watched him with questioning eyes, and said, “Where are you going?”
“I was looking for my friend. And my luggage. A sign mender told me to start at the capital.”
Tom considered the words. “This gate would take you. The town sleeps just down the road. Welp, let’s get rolling.”
“I don’t want to impose. I’m sorry to have interrupted your… candy trip.”
“...Those men may linger. You might be taken again. I’ll be your bark shield.”
“I can’t pay you for service.”
“I wouldn’t accept treasure.”
Tom watched as Mr. Grey stood and considered. After a statuary ponder, Mr. Grey said, “If you’re heading that way already, I’d be grateful for your aid.” Tom didn’t understand the words right away, but got the gist. Mr. Grey added, “You’re an adept warrior. Fierce with that hammer.”
Tom’s face twisted suddenly into a hard glare. “This is a mallet! Extraordinary bluntness. Like an artist’s brush.”
“I meant no offense. It looks high value. A household heirloom, perhaps?”
“This one’s a rental.”
Tom calmed. He explained to Mr. Grey the mallet’s history, outlining the tool’s significance as the hallmark of warriors in Wine Medo. Mr. Grey did his best to ignore his newfound traveling companion’s openly-carried weapon.
Mr. Grey and Tom passed beneath the gate - a small, wine stained statue, and a huge, cloudy sliver of the sky, walking beneath the twining poetree trunks - and together ventured on.
This has been In Different Color, a fairy tale.
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