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It was a while after all the noise had subsided before Marin dared to come out from behind his cover. He wasn't sure who or what had started the brawl but he was certain that the stranger sitting in the corner sipping his drink had ended it. Those who weren't unconscious or dead had either left or were sittingin groups, whispering and casting nervous glances at the stranger. Marin noticed that the side of his face that wasn't concealed behind the grizzled and greying hair had a long scar that started just above the left brow and curved in an "s" to the back of his jaw. To look at him you'd think he was a beggar save for two things. The first was an ornate, yet tarnished, looking sword and the other was his eyes, as dull as the one visible one was there was a spark that spoke of a warrior and a depth to them that few but the wisest of the Sages had. Marin was startled out of his contemplations by the slamming door. Two City Peace Guards had come in along with a priest from the Order of Guiding Light and his assistants.



After speaking to a group of patrons on the right side of the bar, one of th guards approached the stranger, "Pardon me friend," the look he turned on the guard made the man shift uneasily. The guard coughed nervously and went on, "From what I've been told by witneses I'm going to need to take you to my station and I'd like to get your account of what happened." The stranger growled and continued drinking. "Please sir, I don't want trouble but I must do my job." He set his hand on the hilt of his sword.



The stranger sighed and then said in a growlish voice, "Fine, give me a moment." He downed the rest of his drink and stood up. He walked to the counter and set down a coin and told Marin to keep the change. He walked back to the guard and then toward the door.



"I need to ask you to hand over your sword too." The bartender thought that was a rather bold request all things considered, based on the expression he had, the stranger thought the same. "It's procedure, we'll return it to you when you leave our station. This shouldn't take lone." The stranger wrapped the hilt in a black cloth and handed it over. Once his partner had the sword the other guard clubbed the stranger, they caught him as he collapsed and dragged him out. Marin had a bad feeling about this.



It was a couple hours later when Marin went to the guard station and after spotting a guard her was on good terms with, well as good as you can be with a guard when you run a bar known for attracting less than reputable patrons, he approached him, "Hey, Slan..."



Slan grunted, "What do you want Marin?"



Marin cleared his throat, "Well, you know that shady lookin' guy they picked up today?" Slan acknowledged this comment with a jerk of his head. "He's largely responsible for the damage to my pub and, um," he hesitated and wondered to himself, 'Why am I helping this guy?' Then he responded, 'Because there's just something about him...'



"Well? Get on with it!" Slan was by no means a patient man and he really didn't care for Marin much, not because Marin was all that bad but because his pub seemed to attract so much trouble and that was trouble for the Peace Guards.



"Well, yes, I was hoping that he might be released to me pending his trial so that he might work off some of the cost."



"SOrry, no can do." Slan turned back to finish his paperwork.



Marin was a little put out, "And why not? It wouldn't be the first time."



Slan turned back to face him wearing an expression that was unpleasant due both to the fact that he didn't like being questioned and that he didn't really like the information he was about to pass on. "There's no trial, he's to be executed tomorrow. Apparently he got in the middle of a bar fight and killed a lieutenant of the High Guard, a representative is coming tomorrow and the amn is going to be decapitated. Thn the representattive is supposed to take the head back. It would seem that the lieutenant was the brother of the commander in charge of tthe High Guard post in Ruon."



Marin was appalled, "you all are supposed to keep the law! You can't jst let them do that without proper investigation and procedure!"



"Our first priority is the well being of the people in this town and you know damn well what would happen if we get in their way and to put it quite frankly, this guy ain't nothin' but riffraff anyway. I don't think the world would hurt without him but WE certainly will with him!" In a gesture of obvious dismissal, Slan turned his back on Marin completely.



Marin walked down to the cells t speak to the man, "Hey, Stranger," he looked at Marin with the only one visible eye, "I thought I should inform you that I tried to get you out under my custody "til your trial but it seems there's not going to be one. You're to be executed tomorrow. Sorry, I tried."



With his growlish voice he responded, "Good for you. What, do you want a treat?"



Marin was a little offended by the scorn,"No, I just thought you might like to know since nobody here will probably tell you until your head is quite literally on the chopping block and that I don't think this is quite right."



The stranger chuckled drisively, "You don't think it's right but you're not going to do anything about it, right?"



"There's nothing I really can do. If I tried to spring you we'd both be slaughtered in a matter of minutes."



"Tell you what," and his voice took on a slightly cheery note, "bring me a good bottle of red wine and you can have a clear conscience." He pulled out some money and handed it to Marin. Marin looked back into his eye and the man grinned.



Looking back at the events that followed, Marin realized that he shoud have been a little more suspicious. For one thing, a man that's about to have his head cut off unjustly shouldn't seem that amused. When Marin brought him the wine and apologized that he didn't have any fine wines, he grinned and told Marin that it didn't matter. Then he unstoppered it, sniffed it, poored some into a flask, and then gave the bottle back. After that he thanked Marin and lied down in his cot, Marin dwent home and decided to do the same since it was late.



The following morning was the beginning of a ver interestig day. Marin was wakened earlier than he had planned by harsh knocking on his front door. He answered it to a rather pompous looking and fat little man that stepped in as though he had been invited. When Marin turned around the man was wearing a smile that made you want to hit him and holding his hand out. Maring shook it, "So you're the one who helped catch that ruffian. I'm the personal secretary of Dur TOran, it was his brother that was killed." He wiped his hand on his jacket when he let go of Marin's.



"An immortal? Than how'd that stranger kill 'im?



"The man whos dead was not an immortal, if he was he would not have succumbed to such as the person you refer to as 'the stranger'! Anyway, I'm here to extend the gratitude to you on behalf of my master. Here is the reward that was being offered and you are to have a front row seat to the execution."



Marin didn't say anything and the secretary dropped the money on the nearest table and then left. He wasn't so sure that a front row seat to murder was all that great but he decided it wasn't wise to refuse. Later, he was glad he went. It was probably the most eventful execution ever and the only one where it seemed like the person who was to be executed was the executor.



As the Peace Guards lead Dirdan, Marin had overheard someone in the crowd identify him by that name, to the platform where he was to be decapitated Marin gave him an apologetic look. He winked back. 'He can't posibly hope to escape, so why does he seem so calm. In fact, if I didn't know better I'd say he's amused about something.' He did look rather amused indeed, a fact that many in the crowd had noticed and were beginning to whisper about. Just then Marin noticed that the representative wasn't there. "The pompous git probably can't stomach this sort of thing," he said to himself.



They had him in place on the platform now and the executioner spoke, "Dirdan," the man now seemed to be convulsing with silent laughter and this seemed to annoy the executioner. "Just WHAT is so funny?"



"Nothing, nothing. Please, go on," he barely managed to say.



The guard continued, "Dirdan," he was still ver obviously amused and it was making the guard a little cross, "you are to be executed by decapitaion for the crim of murdering a High officer. Do you have anything to say for yourself?"



The amusement left him and seemed to be replaced by a cold hatred that came across by adding harshness to his growl of a voice, "High? There was nothing 'high' about him save for is ego. He got nothin but what he deserved and eventually all like him will suffer the same ore a much worse fate!" His voice rang with rage and determination. There wasn't a person in the crowd that didn't squirm a little as he gazed upon them all.



The executioner cleared his throat nervously and went on after a minute of silence, "Very well then, since you show no remores for your crime there shall be no mercy." He snorted an a spark of amusement seemed to have found it's way back into his one visible eye. "If you have a last request you should make it now."



With what seemed a longing sight he spoke, "I actually wouldn't mind a smoke."



"So be it." The executioner turned to the crowd, "Does anyone have a pipe and a light to spare this man?"



"Here." Marin offered his pipe.



They put the pipe iin his mouth and lit a match. A few things happened then. A light breeze picked up and blew Dirdan's hair so that his right eye could finally be seen, it was silver. At the same moment there was a stranged cry of "Dur Adan!" from the back of the crowd. Dur Adan grinned, suddenly everyone realized the source of his amusement, and the flame on the match swelled and grew arms. The fire arms grabbed swords from guards and broke Dur Adan's binds. They were keeping the guards at bay with their own swords now. One of the guards must have been carrying Dur Adan's sword because a fire arm handed it to him. THe representative gave up pushing through the crowd then and cast a spell at him. With amazing precision, a firy arm flung a sword at the fat man. The sword impacted with the spell and exploded, a small amount of the spell's light got through and hit Dur Adan. He disappeared in a blast then. After everything cleared, he was gone.



Marin looked at the scene with astonsishment. None of the citizens had been hurt and only one Peace Guard had more than a bruised head and that was the one who knocked Dur Adan out in the bar, he only had a minor injury. All fo the High Guards were dead, including the secretary who was found two blocks down. He had ironically, not so ironic as intentional according to many there, been pinned to the coffin maker's shop by half of the sword that had been thrown at him.



The Peace Guards who had been involved were torn between frustration at having been tricked and bested, admiration for the way it had been done, amusement because someone had successfully stood up to the High Guard, and trepidation over the idea of reporting the failure to the commander of the Ruon High Guard post. The rest of the Peace Guards were in about the same emotional state. The whole town talked about it for the next couple of days and Marin's name was brought up in much of the conversation. Even though the average citizen didn't know much of magic it was common knowledge that Marin had been his only visitor and so he was suspect in all the gossip. Since he had been rewarded simply because the man had been captured in his pub he imagined a similar and less friendly connection would be made about the escape, though nobody was sure if he was gone or dead. So he went to his pub, collected the money he had saved up, got what he could travel with loaded on his horse, stopped to pick the bag of money that was his reward, and then was off. He wasn't sure where he was going yet but it was away from here and that was good enough. He left a note turning over the rest of his property to the Peace Guard and that was the end.