Lore of the Underlings: Episode 6 ~ Meeting Minyon Read Online Free PDF Page B

family tree?”
    “Something shady, I’m guessing.”
    All of a sudden the band branched off and
took a detour, a sneakier route. Heading not to but around the huge
tent, they made for its dark side, a place few went, and whisked
the kid away from view so he could be “readied” for trial.
    Quick as he’d neared he’d disappeared. At
least for now. Until judgment time.
     
    A voice from behind surprised the Mynes and
seemed to snap John Cap to life.
    “Thank you, children! That will do.”
    Minyon sidestepped Eela’s spear and waved off
Axon and his knife.
    “Let’s give our guest some breathing
room.”
    John Cap exhaled with a wince, shaking the
cobwebs from his brain. He mumbled a few words to himself while
trying and failing to wipe his face.
    “Did anyone catch the truck that just hit
me?”
    He acted more hung-over now than tipsy.
    Eela seemed to enjoy his state, the wake of
her wicked handiwork — though before her father she’d turned demure
and stepped a good six paces back.
    Her brother was another story. Axon was known
for picking fights and this time and place was no exception.
Indeed, he stood taller and thrust his chest out, as if this new
rival bothered him even more than the fodder the Keep had to offer,
the usual Treasured fare.
    Perhaps with his sire and so many onlookers
there to compare the two of them…
    “So, you must be one of the foreign wayfarers
whom I've fore-heard so much about. Welcome, welcome, my newfound
friend. Please allow me to introduce myself. I am elderman Minyon
Myne, a humble servant of this Keep and its simple but Treasured
folk.”
    He lowered his gaze in a gracious way and
offered his soft hand to the stranger.
    The young man seemed nonplussed by the
gesture, a kindness he had not experienced here. He took it in like
a breath of fresh air, the elixir he needed to sober up.
    “John Cap. Happy to know you.” He tried to
reach for the priestly palm but could not extend his hampered arm.
“Anyway — I’m real glad to meet someone who isn’t after my aching
head.”
    Minyon replied with mild bemusement and a
twinkle in his eye. “No doubt it’s best kept on your neck, to keep
yourself from losing it…”
    Then he turned dead serious.
    “And I have a sense you’ll be needing its
wits in the dark trials and tests that you face ahead.”
    John Cap did a double-take. “Yes… I guess.
I’ll keep that in mind.”
    An awkward silence followed until Eela faked
a little cough.
    “Ah, introductions! I’ve been remiss…” And
with that the elder Myne blushed a bit, but pale as if feigning
embarrassment. “Thank the Lord for my miss informer. I’m not a man
for formalities.”
    He sent his youngest a telling wink.
    “But I think that you may be acquainted by
now with these two, my only worldly treasures…” Proudly, he nodded
toward his twain. “Dear daughter Eela. My son, first-born
Axon.”
    John Cap eyed them sideways. “Yeah, we’ve
met.”
    Minyon smiled and moved much closer, taking
more of the stranger in. Then he reached for the young man’s arm
and pressed it familiarly, skin to skin.
    “I, for one, am grateful you’ve come — that
you’ve found this oasis within our Wild…” His eyes flashed bright,
prophet-like, with the aura of a seer.
    “And I know why you’re here.”
    John Cap looked stunned by the revelation, a
touch disbelieving if not plain suspicious. “Who have you been
talking to?”
    Minyon did not answer head-on but deftly
turned the conversation. “You must know that I am not alone. Other
voices there are, my son, silent ones who would hear you out.”
    Those words were music to John Cap’s ears.
“Honest? That’s all we’re asking for.” The prisoner seemed to lower
his guard.
    Minyon Myne ministered on. “And yet you were
bound to end up here not by brotherhood but fear. Bile is the
life’s blood of this Keep, the reign that keeps its people sheep. A
flock herded hard and taught to be guarded, under a