He pushed out one begrimed foot and wriggled his toes.    “Lost my shoes.  They didn’t make it.  I have had my great adventure.  I have seen lands I never imagined, I have met many kind people.  I have drunk the wines of many lands and I have seen the Dance of the Harvest.  I have been kissed by life, and I have touched the face of  the Holy.  I made a great friend and he travels with me here.”  He tapped his chest over his heart.  “I have learned to play a tambur.”  With that he fished a few coins out of his pouch and put them on the table, found the cup in his carry-all and poured the hot water over the powder he stirred in the cup and sat aside as he sipped the wine.  Stine looked as if he wanted to say something.    “The Mask was returned home and M’baka was treated as a hero.  As was I, for some reason.  Apparently the one who helps the hero, wittingly or not, is also held in high regard.”  Crepit held up a finger.  “The telling would take a year, my friend, so tonight I will tell you one story.”

“We had been traveling for some weeks, and I was feeling ill.  We had passed through a smallish city, but it did not feel right to us, so we proceeded through the city to find a place on the outskirts, out of the way, where I could rest for a day or so. We found a pleasant place where we built a small fire and I spread my blanket.  M’baka left me to go back to an inn we had passed to seek an herbalist.  I must have been weaker than I thought because I had dozed off.  I was awakened by two men hovering over me and going through my things.  They began to abuse me, shoving me with their feet.  It was clear that they fully intended to rob me.  I did not not know whether or not they would leave me alive.  I began to moan, and they stopped long enough to shout at me.  I told them I had the power to summon demons.  They stopped hitting me long enough to laugh.  I didn’t look as if could summon anything.  I could barely sit up.  They began calling on me to call the demon, call the demon, har-har.”  Crepit took a long sip of the kof he had poured through his scrap of cloth.  He closed his eyes.  He sighed and opened his eyes again.  “I began shouting “’Mbaka!  Mbaka!” as loudly as I could, which was none too loud.  They  began laughing and fingering their clubs.  I wish I could describe the looks on their faces when M’baka simply leaped into the area of the fire screaming like a banshee,   swinging his stick so fast it was making a humming noise.”

Stine sat holding his short ale.  “What happened next?”

Crepit was laughing quietly.  “He yanked two brands out of the fire and waved them about so they blazed and smoked as he sang something in his birth language.  I never saw anyone run so fast as those two.”