Exit Interview, Part 3 of 3

EXIT INTERVIEW

3.


Two hours later, Yerzle approached a stout door in a nondescript, although extensive, building within the north-western portion of the Royal Lands. He had neglected to get directions to Bureau 13 from the clerk in Annex Three, and by the time he realized his mistake, after scaling the collapsed stairwell and wading through the apple cores, fish carcasses, and corn cobs again, he’d been reluctant to return and ask. The first functionary he’d come across in Annex One first directed him to Annex Three, and then to the First Sergeant of the Hunt, so after that he had refrained from asking any more questions.

Exiting the Annexes he had bumped into one of the lake monster keepers and that had gone as well as expected, but he managed to ditch his pursuer by running through the carnivorous garden, and was pretty sure his fur would grow back in those patches, in any event. Still, he figured he had to be more careful. “I don’t want to screw anything up,” he told himself. Soon after that, he saw one of the Royal Lands’ maintenance workers. Knowing that the janitors and physical plant workers knew every square inch of the place, he approached the older man. “Excuse me,” he said, “where is Bureau 13?”

“What’s that?” the skunk in coveralls asked. “You’re looking for a blue tureen? What kind of assignment is that for a Huntsman?”

“No, I need to get to Bureau 13!”

The maintenance man scratched his chin in confusion. “You feed the ghetto beauty queen?”

“No!” Yerzle shouted. “Bureau 13! Where is it?”

“Bureau 13?” the skunk asked. “Why would you want to go there?”

“I have orders,” Yerzle said. “It’s my new assignment.”

“You crave porridge?” The old man frowned at him. “That don’t make no sense.”

A grinding, choked snarl was Yezle’s only response, and he waved his order packet in the janitor’s face, an order packet which he had, in his frustration, crumpled in his clenched fist. “Ah,” the old man said, “you have orders. Why didn’t you say so?”

That was how Yerzle now found himself before this door, built of ironwood and further bound in iron, “B13” burned into the surface in hand-high letters. It opened out from the room in which he stood, with a simple latch. Yerzle stood before it for a long moment, not daring to reach for the handle. This was his last chance, his final opportunity to be a real member of the King’s Huntsmen, to live up to his family’s legacy. Taking a final deep breath, he gripped the door latch, pushed it open, and strode through.

He found himself out upon the street.

He spun around, only to watch the door close with a final click. “Hey!” he shouted. There was no latch on this side of the door. For a moment, he stood staring, stunned, at the closed door. What had happened? Where was Bureau 13?

He turned back around, facing the street. No one seemed to notice him; the commercial life of Pervis Gap, capital city of The Greensward, continued on. Across the street was the Harp & Bass, a pub that Yerzle had spent many an evening in over the past eighteen months with his Huntsmen comrades. He’d often wondered about this blank door. Now he knew what it was.

That still didn’t explain what was going on, though. He looked at the crumpled order packet that he still held. The seal had been broken, and the top fold was separated from the bottom. Reluctantly, the dread reality of the situation creeping upon him, Yerzle opened his orders and read them.

Huntsman Yerzle Morosta, the orders read. Greetings from his most Royal Majesty, King Leonest VI. It is our duty to ensure that we retain servitors capable of managing and maintaining all Royal Lands within our domain to the highest quality. According to the most recent metrics recorded and submitted by your supervisor, you have not met the minimum thresholds to achieve those standards. Therefore, it is our duty to inform you that your services are no longer required by Our Huntsmen. At this, Yerzle gasped audibly.

There is no need to gasp, the orders continued, since everything is clearly documented in your personnel file. Four Action Notices in eighteen months? Really? And that poor lake monster! Yerzle frowned. “He didn’t need to editorialize so much,” he mumbled.

Based upon these performance reports, your employment with Our Huntsmen is hereby terminated. We wish you success in your subsequent employment opportunities. The king’s signature, applied by stamp, was smeared since the clerk in Annex Three had failed to blot it properly.

“‘No longer required’?” Yerzle muttered. “Fired?” He felt three generations of King’s Huntsmen within his family reading his termination notice over his shoulder. He imagined that they were not pleased.

What to do now? The salary of an entry-level Huntsman had not been enough to get his own place, so Yerzle would eventually be forced to reveal this to his parents. On the other hand, if he could find new employment before returning home, then perhaps the consequences of his termination would be more manageable.

“But what?” he asked himself aloud, and began to walk down the street. “What employment could a young man moderately trained in the combat arts, tracking, and decision-making find in this economy?”

Before he could formulate a suitable answer for himself, he was barged in the back by a passer-by, causing him to stumble to the street. “Outta the way, chump!” a deep voice behind him called out.

“Hey!” Yerzle shouted as he climbed to his feet. “What do you think you’re doing?” His apparent assailant was a large fellow, to match his voice, with a high-peaked hat and flowing crimson cape that reached nearly to the ground.

“Walking down the street, chump,” the other man said, continuing on his way.

“And who are you, that you can just push people out of the way? You can’t do that to a King’s Huntsman!”

The man stopped and turned, and Yerzle now faced a tiger in impressive scale armor, the tabard covering his mail emblazoned with a crossed shovel and sword, topped by a small strongbox. He wore a broadsword with an elaborate pommel at his left hip, and a knife with a well-worn handle tucked into his belt. The tiger eyed him critically, then pushed his hat back on his head. “You wear the livery,” he said with a grin, “but if you’re a Huntsman, what are you doing standing outside the door to Bureau 13? How many Action Notices did you get? Four? It usually takes at least four.”

“Never mind that!” Yerzle said with a growl, standing on his tiptoes in a failed attempt to look the tiger straight in the eyes. “Where do you get off knocking people down?”

The tiger seemed more amused than threatened. “Ease up, chump,” he said. “I have places to go, and people to see. While you, on the other hand, are obviously unemployed and will soon be lying in the gutter, anyway. I was just giving you a head-start.”

“Who’re you calling a chump, chump?” Yerzle took a step back. “You still don’t have any right--”

“My money gives me the right,” the tiger said, cutting Yerzle off. “The money that just bought me my new peerage. You, chump, are speaking to the Seigneur Hiram Shellain, Gentleman Adventurer!”

“‘Gentleman Adventurer,’” Yerzle asked, adding the capital letters as obviously intended by the Seigneur’s pronunciation. “What does that mean?”

“It means that I am a gentleman, who has adventures! Through the fruits of which I am able to maintain my lifestyle as a gentleman to adventure, instead of laboring in the lake monster pens, like a chump such as yourself!”

Yerzle cringed at the mention of the lake monster. He was sure there’d been no permanent physical or psychological harm done to the beast. Pretty sure, anyway. Still, he was beginning to understand the Seigneur. “You’re a tomb-robber,” he said.

“Look, kid,” the Seigneur said. He leaned in and wrapped a gauntleted arm around Yerzle’s shoulder. The scale armor was cold and heavy against the back of his neck. “We prefer to call it the treasure acquisition industry, and it can be very lucrative. Don’t knock it.” He gave Yerzle a comradely slap upon the back, which caused the fox to stumble forward, then resumed his travels. “I’ve got to get to my accountant’s office,” he called over his shoulder. “Think about what I told you!”

Yerzle stood in the street and watched the mercenary until he turned a corner and disappeared from view. Then he stood some more, thinking about the conversation, and what the Seigneur’s parting words. An idea formed, vague and nebulous at first, then gradually gaining focus and clarity. Yes, he thought. This would work.

“I’ve got to get home and tell everyone!” he said to himself as he ran down the street. “I’m going to be an accountant!”

Exit Interview, Part 2 of 3

EXIT INTERVIEW

2.

“Welcome to Annex Three!” a young beaver in the livery of the King’s Hunstmen told Yerzle as he entered the foyer. “How may I be of service to you?” Yerzle brushed the last of the cobwebs from behind his left ear and limped over to the beaver’s desk.

“That’s a nasty limp you’ve got there,” the clerk said.

“You need to have your stairs looked at,” Yerzle said. “They collapsed as soon as I stepped on them. That’s how I twisted my ankle.”

“That’s not a bug, sir, that’s a feature. The stairs collapse into a slide in order to provide efficient transport to these lower levels.”

“So, Annexes One and Two are above you? The floor above this one was waist-deep in apple cores, fish carcasses, and corn cobs. And the floor beneath it all was covered in honey or something. It was sticky.”

“Knowing Annex Two, it was ‘or something.’ And I wondered what that smell was! Those jokers upstairs! You gotta love ‘em!”

“The entrance to this level was a secret door!”

“We are Annex Three, after all.”

Yerzle began to respond, then thought better of it. He decided to approach from a different angle. “And just what is that?” he asked. “I’d never heard of you, before today.”

The beaver winked and laid a finger aside his snout. “Ah, sir, that’s the whole purpose of Annex Three!”

Yerzle waited for the clerk to continue, but he remained silent, his hands folded primly atop his desk and a broad grin across his face. The fox decided he didn’t really care what Annex Three was for, as long as it got him to his new post. “I’ve been assigned to Bureau 13, and I was told to first report here, after which you would tell me where to go.”

“Bureau 13?” the clerk asked brightly. “Ah, of course. You have a goldenrod sheet?” Yerzle handed the paper the First Sergeant had given to him over to the beaver, who began reading it.

“It didn’t make much sense to me,” Yerzle said.

“Well, it wouldn’t, to you.”

Yerzle waited as the beaver read the sheet, thoughtfully tapping his prominent incisors and muttering to himself. Finally, the clerk folded the goldenrod sheet and placed it to one side. He drew a clean sheet of high-quality vellum from one drawer of his desk and an inkwell and quill pen from another. Dipping the pen into the ink, he wrote furiously upon the vellum for a few moments, then blotted the still-wet ink with his shirt sleeve. Returning the inkwell and pen to their drawer, he then drew out two stamps. He used one upon the vellum, which he then folded into thirds. The second was a wax stamp, which he used to seal the folded vellum.

“These are your new orders,” he said, handing the vellum to Yerzle. “Don’t open them until you actually enter Bureau 13. That’s very important; if you open them before your reach the Bureau, it will threaten the status of your new assignment.”

Yerzle eagerly accepted the letter. “I won’t even think of opening them until I get there!” he said excitedly. “I need to be at the top of my game to impress my new officers! Thanks!”

“Of course you do,” the clerk said as Yerzle dashed from the office, his limp apparently forgotten. “Good luck with that.”

Exit Interview, Part 1 of 3

EXIT INTERVIEW

1.

The office was tiny, with a high ceiling. Most of it was filled by a large desk facing away from a high, narrow window overlooking rolling meadows that met a dense forest. Most of the rest of the office was filled by the occupant of the office, First Sergeant of the Hunt Titus Forminciun. A musty, earthy scent filled the spaces within the office that the First Sergeant and his desk did not, a moldering-leaves-in-autumn scent, a bear-like scent. This was no great surprise, as the First Sergeant was, in fact, a large brown bear.

A young fox tod stood before the desk, trying not to wring his russet tail between his hands in his nervousness, instead running his hand through his thick forelock. Then he remembered where he was, and slapped both arms to his sides. This was not the first time that Yerzle, the fox in question, had encountered the First Sergeant, but it was the first time in this office. His head filled with his superior’s thick, musty scent, and he felt suddenly faint.

Both wore the green tunics and dun-colored breeches of the King’s Huntsmen, although the fox had noticeably fewer stripes upon his sleeves. The First Sergeant was reviewing a file, one of many stacked in several high piles upon the wide mesa of his desk, and upon which Yerzle could see his name neatly printed on the front cover. A pair of delicate, wire-rimmed reading glasses gave the First Sergeant a touch of the scholar, but however they softened his appearance was offset by their precarious perch upon his broad snout, the ragged notch torn from his left ear, and the three narrow scars that descended from the corner of his right eye to the corner of his mouth. He turned a page in the file, flipped back to the first page, then turned it again.

“So, Huntsman Morosta.” The First Sergeant’s voice was a bass rumble that Yerzle felt in his chest as much as heard. “You’ve been in the King’s Huntsmen for....”

“Eighteen months, First Sergeant.”

“Yes,” the First Sergeant said. “Eighteen months. I see your father was in the Huntsmen.”

“And my grandfather,” Yerzle added. “And my mother’s uncle.”

The First Sergeant glanced over the edge of the file folder at Yerzle, his frown causing the scars to stretch eerily. Do not interrupt me again, the look said. Yerzle gulped audibly and groped for his tail.

“You’re a legacy, which is commendable. But in those eighteen months, you have received four Action Notices, haven’t you?” Yerzle said nothing, only miserably wringing his tail.

“Haven’t you?” Now the First Sergeant’s expression, unchanged, clearly meant Answer me when I ask you a question.

“Yes, First Sergeant.” Yerzle’s voice was a dry croak. He worked hard to keep his knees from knocking. The First Sergeant’s stink was almost overwhelming, living up to the rude nickname that he’d been given by the rank-and-file Huntsmen, although no one ever even whispered it aloud if they thought he was within three hundred yards.

“The first was only three weeks after enlisting. You tracked and captured a black-footed leaper in the Piney Woods. A leaper that was intended as prey for the Younger Prince in his own hunt.”

“Yes, First Sergeant.”

“The second was two months after that, when you entered the Redstone Tower and set off the wards within. You were lucky to get out with only a fall down the main staircase, and it took the Mage-Ensigns another week to corral the phantasms properly. You ruined the Princess’s twelfth birthday party over that.”

The First Sergeant again referred to the file. “The third involved the lake monster, and the less said about that, the better.”

“If I may, First Sergeant....”

“No, you may not.” The First Sergeant closed the file and tossed it onto the nearest pile of similar files, then leaned back in his chair, which creaked ominously. Yerzle released his tail, which immediately curled between his legs.

“Finally, while on patrol near the Golden Barrows, you interfered with the King’s own efforts, barging into the tomb of Gil-Toran and disrupting the wight of the ancient king from completing the sacrifice of a captured maiden.”

“I heard her cries for help!” Yerzle exclaimed.

“Of course you did! That’s why the King was there!” The First Sergeant leaned forward again, his elbows on the desk and his head over the stacks of files. “In the year-and-a-half that you’ve been a member of the King’s Huntsmen, Yerzle, have you learned what our responsibility is?”

The First Sergeant was intimidating in any situation, an effect that was magnified one hundredfold in the tiny office. “We manage the Royal Lands,” Yerzle replied meekly, his ears flattened against his head. “We maintain them for the use of the King and his family.”

“Precisely. We manage, and we maintain. For the King and his family. We manage to get a black-footed leaper for the Younger Prince to hunt. Did you notice that its claws had been dulled? The Prince needs to learn how to hunt, but let’s face it, he’s only nine. We maintain the ruins and other abandoned structures within the Royal Lands. The phantasms of the Redstone Tower are on our payroll! The Princess’s birthday party was also a learning exercise for decision-making.”

“And the wight of Gil-Toran?”

“If you didn’t already know that he’s the king’s nine-times great grand-uncle, then you haven’t been doing your research. He works for free, out of familial obligations, but the maiden was an employee.” The First Sergeant sat back and removed his spectacles. “And it has come to my attention that you have been seen in the company of that maiden, within the city. Is this true?”

Yerzle attempted to speak, but could not. He swallowed, then cleared his throat. “Yes, First Sergeant.”

“Fraternizing with a civilian employee of the Royal Lands is a violation of the Huntsman Code of Conduct, you understand. We cannot allow the two sides of this facility to become intermingled. It’s bad for the operation.”

“It was only dinner, First Sergeant!”

The First Sergeant glared at Yerzle, who shrunk upon himself and took up his tail again, twisting it in his paws. “My information tells me it was three dinners,” the First Sergeant replied. “With drinks after one of them, and a trip to the phantasmagoria show after another.”

“Your.... Your information?” Yerzle looked about the room in misery. Perhaps there was a nearby hole he could crawl down, or a cliff he could fling himself off. Unfortunately for him, however, the floor was as solid as the First Sergeant’s biceps, and the only ledge he could see was the windowsill, protected from his flight by the First Sergeant’s considerable bulk. He doubted that the First Sergeant would allow him to escape this interview so easily.

The First Sergeant sighed, a sound that caused Yerzle’s guts to freeze in a way that his mere disapproval could not. And so far, his disappointment was terribly frightening. They were silent, the First Sergeant sitting behind his desk staring implacably at the Huntsman standing before him in fear for his career and, possibly, his life.

Finally, the First Sergeant spoke. “Are you going to wet yourself?”

“Excuse me?” Yerzle asked, shocked out of his fear. “Am I going to what?”

“Wet yourself. It happens sometimes. You’ve shown about four different submissive postures, and I was just curious as to whether you’d go all the way. I like to keep track, since maintenance hates it when they have to clean it up, and I usually have to buy them drinks, after.”

“No,” Yerzle replied. “I don’t think so.”

“Good. You looked like you were on the verge.” The First Sergeant opened up a new folder and removed a goldenrod-colored sheet of paper. Then he stood and squeezed around his desk to stand next to Yerzle.

Standing, the First Sergeant was enormous, far larger than he appeared when seated. “Your enthusiasm for the job of Huntsman is unmistakable and, apparently, irrepressible, which presents me with... challenges. I’ve got no choice but to reassign you,” he said, offering the sheet to Yerzle. “You’ll be joining Bureau 13.”

“I’ve never heard of that,” Yerzle said, taking the paper. “Where do I report?”

“This is a large organization,” the First Sergeant admitted. “You first need to report to Annex Three, and they’ll take care of things from there.”

“Thank you, First Sergeant,” Yerzle said. “For a second there, I thought you were going to kick me out of the Huntsmen! I appreciate this second chance, and won’t let you down!”

“Yes....” the First Sergeant muttered as Yerzle dashed down the hall to find Annex Three. “Enjoy your new assignment....”