The Heir of Famas
A clerk at an insurance firm in Famas. The last living son of a line of elf-conquerors who burned cities for sport. Dug had lived a quiet life — until one morning, at the tram stop, something dripped on his head.
By Yaryna
An elf named Dug lived in Famas.
They said he came from a rare line of elf-conquerors. In ancient times, when the lands of the new state stretched so wide that one could travel for weeks between towns and meet no living soul, his ancestors had still managed to seize settlements and burn them, to war among themselves, and to bring untold terror upon everyone they met. It was their passion, and the meaning of their lives.
Any fool, they believed, could raise a city of wood and stone on ordinary ground. But on blood and bones? That was the mark of an artisan.
They said Dug was their last direct descendant. And, as so often happens, he had been born not quite as his ancestors would have wished.
He was a clerk at an insurance firm.
And Dug dreamed of a few things.
Of a promotion he had never asked for. Of girls he had never dared invite on a date. Of journeys he had never taken. He had travelled once in his life — eight years ago, when his firm (where he had already been working for fifteen years) opened a Famas branch and transferred him here. That had been the only trip.
His days followed a fixed pattern. Morning shower; coffee and toast with fried eggs; forty minutes on the tram; nine hours in the office. A few smoke breaks. A few stressful moments. In the evenings, either a run through the park near his apartment, or a beer with his best friend Vince — a succubus who, after every divorce, was determined to drink himself blind. He had divorced four times already.
Without Dug, Vince would have drunk himself blind long ago. But the slight elf, as a rule, would drink himself stupid and throw up just as the succubus was beginning to feel anything at all. And by the time he had got Dug home and cleaned him up, Vince was sober again. He would go home and fall asleep. Or to some new lover, complaining about a friend he couldn't bring himself to drop, but was often ashamed to be seen with. And so the succubus did not drink himself to death — and Dug, for his part, got to air his soul a little.
He snored until six in the morning. He got up, showered, and began the loop again.
Day after day. Week after week. Year after year.
Then one morning,something dripped on his head.
He was standing near a tram stop, waiting for the morning tram. He looked around in surprise, then up — but the sky held neither a cloud nor a bird. Behind him, half a metre away, was an ordinary brick wall. Around him, other creatures on their way to work.
Dug shrugged and went on standing where he was. And then it dripped again. And again.
He jumped aside and looked up — nothing. Only a rusty downspout high above… but it had not rained in days.
He scratched his head, ran a hand across his face, and stepped onto the tram that pulled up.
On the tram,packed to bursting, no one sat next to him. Strange. When he got off, the other creatures kept their distance. And in the office — where the only attention he had ever drawn was when someone needed to yell at him — everyone fell silent the moment he walked in.
Vince, who worked at the same firm, tore himself away from staring at a new intern's behind as she arranged folders in a cabinet. He came up to Dug, looking troubled.
—“Dug? What's wrong with you? Are you all right?”
—“Yes. Why?”—Dug answered, surprised by all the sudden attention
—“You're covered in blood. Go to the bathroom — the clients will be terrified.”—whispered Vince, irritated now
The elf obeyed.
The mirror showed that something red had been smeared across his whole face. It ran from his hairline as though his head had been split open. But it hadn't — Dug had not struck anything. He patted himself down just in case, washed up, and left the bathroom. His suit, too, was spattered. He spent the rest of the day in the archives, well out of the clients' sight.
A week passed quietly.
Dug washed, ate, worked. Vince's new romance with the intern meant Dug — predictably — was left to himself. So the beer he used to drink in company, he now drank alone at home. Sometimes he glanced at the intern too and thought, perhaps it was time to stop being afraid. Vince would forgive him; he was a succubus, he had no shortage of women. And Dug had had no one for years.
But he didn't dare.
And then one day a red drop landed on his head again. From some rooftop. Then another. And another. The elf ran home, called the police from there, and told them blood was pouring from the roofs. The officers came, looked everything over, laughed at his foolishness, fined him half his salary for the false call, and left.
The next day,deciding it was now or never, Dug invited the intern to dinner. She refused — she was visiting her grandmother that day, she said, and a friend's birthday the next, and the week after she was very busy.
On his way home, the rain gutters opened on him. They poured, and poured, until his suit was sodden through with blood.
He spent a long time washing it when he got home. A long time washing himself. In the morning, sleepless but clean, he put on different clothes and stepped out for work. The moment he crossed his own threshold, the rooftop drenched him in blood again.
It went on like that for several days — until the office called and told him he was being let go. Where had anyone ever seen such a thing — taking sick leave during such difficult times for the firm! There were better candidates for his position now…
The one who called was Vince. And he sounded so cheerful. Somewhere in the background, the seductive intern giggled.
Dug waited for a night that brought rain.
Then the water nearly washed away the blood that poured onto him from everywhere the moment he stepped outside.
He took only one thing with him. A hammer.
And with it, he killed his former friend. And the intern in his bed. And a few others from the firm who had long annoyed him.
When he walked toward the train station at dawn, the blood no longer poured from anywhere.
There were many cities ahead.
And in case the gutters ever started dripping what they shouldn't, he already knew how to stop it.
In his bag, the hammer always rode along.
The End.