LUDIC LOG

Brog Bingand did not like waiting and planning and thinking. These things were done by city men and soft men and weak men who did not have the stomach for action. But there was much he did not understand, about this place and its people and what had happened to him: the not-understanding made him sick with rage and he cast around his great head looking for something to hit.

"There are some problems you can't solve by grabbing them by the throat," said the man Swallowtail, SHUT UP screamed Brog Bingand's mind. Shut up. But now he could not tell the man to shut up, not yet. Right now he needed to hear the things that Swallowtail thought he knew.

The man Swallowtail was also new to this city, but he was smart in a way. Not in a way of power, for he was weak and helpless and a pathetic drunken clown and not a true man. The way of power was the only smart that was important. But still he knew things, he knew about how to say things and where to go and how you should act so the soldiers would not come after you. He knew about the law and about money and he had secrets and even though he would not tell them to Brog Bingand, he would. He would, very soon, because Brog Bingand would make him tell.

They walked, he and the man Swallowtail, through the high noon, with the city on all sides of them, thick and busy like the forests of his home but with no silence or peace. The city was bigger than he had thought, and was a confusion of color and words and people would shout as he walked by, and he would spin and glare and see who was talking to him, but no one was even looking at him.

"They aren't even talking to you," said the man Swallowtail, "just yelling to passersby. They want you to buy something." At first Brog Bingand would bellow at the calling strangers, saying how he did not want to buy (he would not tell them that all his money was gone, deep in himself he felt how there was a city-shame attached to this condition of no-money), until Swallowtail told him he should not do this anymore but only ignore them.

He was angry, angry unto killing, at all that had happened to him. The city frustrated and thwarted him at every turn, and he was being made to change his plans, which was too hard for him, and he needed to stop and be quiet so he could think of what to do to make things work and figure out how the city would some day be made to bow to him and do as he commanded, to give over its riches and march forward to war when he gave the word, but the city would not give him quiet and the man Swallowtail did not want to stop.

"Stop! Stop walking now. I want to stop now, and sit to think. We will stop now," he told Swallowtail. They would do what HE wanted now, that was the way it would be.

"Stop where? Here?" Swallowtail raised his thin long head at the face of the building where Brog Bingand had commanded they rest; it was clean and straight and new, not like the older buildings up the mountain where the puny little man had called him barbarian, and he had thought they could rest here where there was food, and people outside and they were sitting and talking and eating. "This is a restaurant. You can't just stop here to sit and talk," and Brog Bingand was tired of people telling him what he could not do STOP SAYING WHAT I CAN'T DO! screamed his mind in the pale white shaven face of Swallowtail. "They'll charge you to sit here. It costs money, you see."

"Why? Why must I pay? I only want to sit."

"Well, that's capitalism for you."

"I do not know what that means. You use foolish words, you talk too much. Why don't you tell me the truth? You are a liar." Brog Bingand did not like liars, at least when they were not him. He knew the value of a good lie, for it could buy you the time you needed to get someone into the proper position that you could kill them. Lies could get you what you wanted until it was time to get it with a sword. But Swallowtail was a storyteller, a foolish sort of liar who only wanted to hear himself talk, and who did not even care for reward (for what could Brog Bingand give him? He had no money) but only sought to make his audience think him clever. He loathed such weak, frivolous liars, as he loathed the bard of his village, a slacking weakling with no taste for battle who would still sing stories of every victory and make himself figure into them all. The bard had a reputation in the village and Brog Bingand could not kill him; but when no one was watching he would kick him in his ass, push him onto the rough ground, grind his thumb into the effeminate liar's temple or ear. Then he would say that if the bard told anyone what happened Brog Bingand would cut his throat one night, waking him from sleep before he did it so his last memory before being dragged down to hell would be of horror and pain and the certainty of his own death. Now I have told YOU a story, Brog Bingand would say, but mine is a true one.

"Look, I'm responsible for you. Do you know what that means?" The man Swallowtail carried in his voice a hateful sneering whine that made Brog Bingand biliously angry.

"Yes! Yes, I know what means responsible! You think I am stupid, eh? Maybe I will show you how stupid I am, some day. No one is responsible for me, do you understand? You do what the little man in the tower says, because you are weak and beaten by this city. But I am not. I do as I please." He puffed up to his greatest height, and towered above the man Swallowtail, reeking of superiority, of contempt.

The man Swallowtail shrunk down his shoulders, but did not be quiet. There was a hardness now to his voice, difficult for him to speak but with a man's confidence. "What it means is that you CAN do as I please, but if you fuck up, I have to face the consequences. And I don't even know you, friend. I'm not going to take a beating on your behalf again, and I'm not here to do you any favors. If you want to tear off on your own I won't stop you, but if you get in the shit and I have to suffer for it, I guarantee that I will hit you hard. You aren't stupid. But you have no idea what this city can do to you, or what I can do, or what that little man can do." The man Swallowtail was angry himself now, and it was comical to watch: his anger was small, weak, annoyed, not the anger of a warrior, a true man. Still he spoke and Brog Bingand let him, did not quiet him with his good right hand.

"What are you going to do on your own, anyway?" asked Swallowtail. "You don't have anyplace to live. You don't have any papers. You hardly speak the language. You don't have any money. You're in exactly the same place I was when I came here, only worse off, because"

"Because WHY? Because you are better than me? Because you are so special? Hah? So smart, you can live better than Brog Bingand? Say it, fucking man, but also show it! Show why you are better than me! You wear a sword, show me how you are better than me!" Brog Bingand bellowed his challenge, but with a laugh in his voice: the man Swallowtail could show him nothing, for he was like his sword thin and long and weak and stooped and worthless.

"Listen, fool," whimpered Swallowtail, "if we fight here we will be right back in the cell, and you won't be getting out this time. Is that what you want?"

"No," grinned Brog Bingand, "that is not my plan." He had decided: Swallowtail, who had called him fool, would be a forgotten victim in a week's time. As soon as he discovered where Swallowtail kept all his money he would take it, and he would pound Swallowtail's head against a floor of stone until he was quiet for once, and he would laugh about it and forget it.

"Your plan? What plan? What is your plan, I'd be very curious to know," said Swallowtail in that whining sneer as they walked on past the gaping fish-faces of the ity men and their bloated women at the place where you must pay to sit. Into the darker and thicker parts of the city did they walk, towering over filthy traders and drovers in a hundred colors, until no one stared anymore.

"I came to become rich, to raise an army, and to make this city mine. I am the fear of this land, I am a ghost of the north, I am the nightmare come to ravage the city and build me a kingdom. I am come to prove the might of my people, to lay waste to the lands west and south, and return in glory to from where I came." A thousand times had he rehearsed this speech, the longest he had spoke ever, and only once he had said it before, to the village the night he left, to great rejoicing and the wonderful bloodthirsty screams of his fellow warriors. It felt so good coming out of his mouth, it felt like flesh against flesh and sounded like the clang of steel, and he understood for one moment why Swallowtail liked so much to talk. But Swallowtail only laughed a short little laugh, which he did not understand and did not like.

"Let me tell you something," said the man Swallowtail, walking down a narrow passage in between two buildings. Then he spun quickly and hooked his foot behind Brog Bingand's left knee; he ducked his head and rammed it hard, propelled by his thin shoulders, into Brog Bingand's chest. Only for a second was Brog Bingand flustered and he smiled toothily, reaching behind his back for the straps of his great axe; but the man Swallowtail had anticipated he would do so. Swallowtail fell to his knees and grasped Brog Bingand's hand at the wrist and shoulder at the socket; he lifted and pushed Brog Bingand's arm and bent back Brog Bingand's fingers. He was weak and pathetic but he knew some trick of the hands, and Brog Bingand growled in rage and pain. Inside Brog Bingand's arm he snaked his own arm, bracing and holding it as he slid his other hand inside a pocket in his coat, removed a small sharp knife, like a fish knife, and sliced open the straps that held the great axe.

Brog Bingand, huge and furious, a true man in his fullest rage, rose to his full height, taking the man Swallowtail with him. Brog Bingand had great strength and reeled backward towards the wall, crashing Swallowtail into it, trying to rob him of breath and determination. But his arm was still tied, he was still in pain, and he could not reach his weapon. Now did Swallowtail twist Brog Bingand's fingers, causing infuriating, impossible pain; and with his free hand he brought his tiny sharp knife to the soft hairy underside of Brog Bingand's chin, poised like a silver crow of death, ready to take Brog Bingand's life. It was not true, it could not be true. Now did Swallowtail speak:

"Here is some truth for you, fucker. I could kill you right this second, and no one would care. No one would even ask who you were; they'd just toss your corpse in the bay. Or I could call for the guards, and tell them you tried to rob me, and I would be believed; you would be thrown in the cell for a dozen years and no one would ever listen when you told them I was the one who attacked you. Or I could just let you go off on your own and you'd bring nothing but shame and ruin on yourself and on me. You threw yourself into my life, and until I can be rid of you we are stuck with one another. Now, you're going to stop acting like a lunatic and listen to me, and maybe we'll both do fine."

He leapt nimbly off Brog Bingand's back; the axe lay on the ground, free and clear, where it could be reached, where Brog Bingand could seize it and cleave his head in two rotting parts, like cabbage abandoned to the crows. He stood motionless, only his fixed, cruel eyes moving, as Brog Bingand picked up the huge double blade. But Brog Bingand did not use it; instead he hefted it onto his wide shoulder and stared down at the man, the rich man who said he was responsible for Brog Bingand, the man who said he was from another world, and who he would very soon rob and kill and desecrate the corpse. "Very good, Swallowtail," he growled. "You are still a liar and a hopeless slave, but you know how to fight, so perhaps you may someday prove to have some value to Brog Bingand." He smiled a false smile that Swallowtail met with an equally false smirk. "What do we do now, you who have been entrusted with responsibility to Brog Bingand? Say, and I will do."

Swallowtail laughed a nervous and hollow laugh, a death-rattle laugh more bitter than herbs. "Christ, it's about time. All right. We're going to buy you a few things, and then we will go to my home, and we will talk. We'll figure out what we're going to do with you, is what we do now."

Brog Bingand walked behind him all the way to the shops, with each pace seeing in his mind his great axe burying itself with a heart-catching thud into the soft curve at the base of Swallowtail's skull. He was already thinking and planning and talking, inside: he already knew what he was going to do now. Always first in his mind was a black and heated list of all who had done him wrong, a ledger that was the only writing he could read. His goal in life was to see the ruin and death of each and every name on this list, and now, today, this second day in the great city he would some day lead home to his village in chains, there was a new name at its very top: the name of Kenneth Swallowtail.