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Go back? Ah, well, the day crowd would be different, certainly. No doubt Antian would not even be working first thing in the morning. But would, actually, they be open in the morning? No harm in looking.
But how had they managed to walk this far? Ah, well, they had run for a time. Olog was big and drunk, but he was fast. Therian's feet hurt, which he was sure said something for distance and speed.
When they arrived at the Unicorn, the door was closed, the sign was missing, and everything was shut tight.
"Like I thought," said Therian, "Not open until later."
A voice cackled from behind them. "Back for more, I reckon, boys be back for more and who is to know after it all who knows why and what for? Boys and their girls, I say and all of it all swirling like wind and dirt on roads with twisties and blows and..."
The voice fell away into a fit of giggles and Therian shared a concerned look with Branor. The speaker was an ancient looking man. It was to be expected that they had not noticed him, because until they looked close, he looked like nothing more than a pile of rags on the ground.
"Sir, are you... are you quite all right?"
The man's face was as cracked and wrinkled as unoiled leather left out in the field in the summer for too long. Liver spots decorated the skin that was not taken over by tiny blue veins. "All right? But are we ever all right, all of us anyway, or right? What is right, and can we have it, can we have it all? If it were all, and it were right, you wouldn't be here would you, all chasing after the whiff of a damsel?"
"What do you know, old man?" asked Branor.
"Hehehe, what any of us knows and what I know is what the wind knows, what happens when the dark takes away the vision and it's all smell and sound and you, the two of you, hehehe..."
"Bran, he's sick in the head, he's got to be, just leave him."
"Rick Bran Rick Bran Rick's the man and so is Bran." The wizened body stretched and crackled, and then sat up straight. He looked around. He looked up at Therian and Branor and asked, quite lucidly, "Have you seen my wife? I seem to have misplaced her."
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