Maybe it was the sake the tavern was serving, but I felt I couldn’t abide the scoundrel’s smugness a moment more. (I was regrettably short-tempered in my youth.) I rose from my table, hand on the hilt of my karabela. “I’ve got a letter for you, right here.”
YOwOL rose to his feet as well, banhammer in one hand, glowing (and slightly wobbly) cylinder in the other. Someone, I’m not sure who, shouted, “It’s the Armistice! Dueling is forbidden!”
We stared at each other for a long moment more, saying nothing as the tavern fell silent around us. At the same instant, we relaxed slightly. I sighed, “very well,” and removed my hand from my sword; YOwOL tossed his banhammer aside in a gesture of contempt–
–where it fell heavily on one end of an ill-fastened floorboard. That edge of the board sank under the hammer’s weight, resulting in the opposite end flipping up and flinging nails into the air–
–and one nail sailed through space, sinking into the cork of a bottle on the shelf behind the bar, which tipped the bottle into its companion, causing that bottle to bump into a third bottle, which knocked a fourth bottle to the floor where it shattered, liquor running–
–forming a puddle in front of a passing barmaid, who slipped and fell, sending pewter mugs and platters tumbling–
–the large, heavy platter rolling across the floor, the clanking and clattering like thunder as it spun and lopped the leg off a coat-rack–
–the coat-rack scraping along the wall as it collapsed, sending an oil-burning lantern crashing down and splattering flaming liquid everywhere–
–the burning oil igniting a rope, which stretched above everyone’s heads to a massive iron chandelier–
–which came smashing down between YOwOL and myself, missing us both by a hair’s-breadth.
The entire tavern froze. My nemesis and I stared at each other in shock. After a long, long moment, YOwOL muttered, “This never would have happened at Peasant Pies in SF,” and scornfully turned to leave. Unfortunately, he tripped over the handle of his banhammer and crashed heavily to the ground… the tip of his “sword” protruding from his back, pointing toward the ceiling.
No, I’m not kidding. He skewered himself on his own blade.
I stepped around the fallen chandelier and rolled my opponent onto his side. Blood bubbled from the corner of his mouth as he gasped, “I just wanted to go watch Cheers.” Then he died.
I grabbed the handle of the weapon and pulled it out of YOwOL’S chest. “Stop your clowning, durak. We need to leave before the authorities show up.” I waited for the lightning to flicker across the wound and heal him.
I waited for the lightning…
The lightning wasn’t coming.