Merle the Merchant-Mage

As the morning sun began peeking its flaming head over the distant horizon, a lone traveler pushed his peddler’s cart eastward along a winding dirt road in the Kingdom of Taman.

The rickety cart was old, but the man pushing it was older still. His hands holding the cart’s handles were strong and hardy. He was slightly stooped and frail-looking, but he moved with confidence and grace despite his many years.

His long gray hair was tucked behind his ears and hidden under a large, broad-brimmed hat that kept the morning sun off his aged face. His vivid eyes peered out beneath his hat brim, sweeping back and forth across his surroundings. No one was in sight. His beard—also long and gray—went down to his stomach.

He wore a strange assortment of clothing—his boots a weatherworn, faded leather, pants a dark brown, shirt an olive green. He wore a jacket with many different pouches and pockets, and over all that, he wore a traveler’s cloak that looked at first to be storm gray, then ocean blue, then dirt brown, and then—somehow—all of those colors combined and yet none of them all at once.

All this to say, he was a curiously strange-looking fellow, but he didn’t mind. Looking a little odd, well, that simply went with the territory. The man’s name was Merle and he was a Merchant-Mage. This is his story. Well, one of his stories. Ordinary enough Merchant-Mages had plenty of good stories told about them, and Merle was nothing short of extraordinary.

To the right and left of the winding dirt road were deep, dark woodlands. The morning dew glistened on the grass; birds chirped in the trees, filling the cool air with sound. Merle added to that noise as he whistled a jaunty tune, pushing his peddler’s cart down the road.

There were no other travelers along the winding dirt path, but Merle didn’t mind. The early bird got the worm, and as Merle always said, the early peddler got a head-start on his competition. Or, at the very least, the early peddler would be closer to the next town than if they started out later in the day.

Merle figured he’d make it to the next town around mid-morning—which was just the right time to sell his many wares, baubles, beautiful gems, and trinkets. The townspeople would be awake by mid-morning with their own market just opening up for business.

Merle smiled to himself, thinking of all the profits he could make from buying, selling, and trading with the townspeople. It was shaping up to be a beautiful day. Life was good, and hopefully, business would be good too.

He’d been a Merchant-Mage for many, many years, but most people didn’t know that last part of his title. All they saw was his peddler’s cart. They thought he was just a normal, unassuming merchant. After all, he wasn’t wearing a wizard’s hat—his was large and floppy and looked quite silly to most folk. It certainly was not impressive and wizardly. And he wasn’t wearing wizard’s robes. His cloak did look quite impressive, but it certainly didn’t look magical. It was, of course, but Merle kept that knowledge to himself. No, with his peddler’s cart, Merle just looked to be a simple merchant—no one extraordinary at all. That was fine by Merle.

While wizards were respected well enough by common folk, they were also feared. After all, normal folk couldn’t summon lightning bolts to hurl down from the heavens. Most wizards couldn’t do that either—the most they could manage was a light tingle that set one’s hair on end—but it wouldn’t do to let people know wizards weren’t as powerful as people thought. That would cause all sorts of problems. Thus, people kept a healthy distance between themselves and wizards.

Merle wouldn’t normally mind that fact—seeing as he was a bit of an introvert and didn’t care too much for crowds—but people keeping their distance from him really didn’t help his sales revenue. So, he much preferred to keep his arcane skills to himself. He only used them on the rarest of occasions, when absolutely necessary.

Lost in his thoughts as he pushed his peddler’s cart down the road, Merle didn’t notice as the winding path took him deeper and deeper into the dark forest. The morning sun was blocked by trees, looming large overhead. The sun tried to pierce the darkness but was met with little success. Shadows danced—playful and yet eerie.

Merle had never come this way before. That wasn’t unusual—there were many roads Merle had never traveled. Many places in the vast, wide world where he’d never stepped foot. This dark forest road was certainly up there with one of the creepiest places he’d ever been.

Merle suddenly recalled a rumor he’d heard whispered in a dimly lit tavern a town or two back—a nasty rumor about a group of murderous brigands roaming the surrounding woodlands and waylaying unwary travelers—but he’d paid it no mind.

Back when he heard the rumor, Merle had been sitting in that dimly lit tavern, his belly full of good food and drink. Talk of brigands and thieves in some dark forest seemed so far-off and not at all worrisome. Now, in that same dark forest, that talk seemed much, much closer and worrisome.

Not that Merle was afraid. Oh no. Not much scared Merle the Merchant-Mage. But this whole situation did call for some caution on his part. And Merle was a very cautious fellow most of the time.

He suddenly stopped pushing his cart as he realized—the birds had stopped chirping. Merle looked around warily at the dark forest. All was silent—nothing moved.

Then, out of the shadows along the winding road stepped six ominously threatening figures. It was possible that they weren’t actually ominous or threatening—maybe it was just the dim lighting that made them seem so—but Merle didn’t think that was likely.

No, it was probably because of their wicked grins, the rusted scraps of metal and leather armor they wore, and perhaps the nasty, sharp-looking weapons they carried. That was probably it. And yet, Merle refused to show fear on his face, even as the six brigands gathered around his peddler’s cart, leering at him.

Merle imagined they thought there was a great deal of gold on his person—or perhaps other valuables they could steal from him. He did, of course, have a great deal of gold on him—and numerous wares, baubles, beautiful gems, and trinkets—but he couldn’t very well tell them that, now could he?

If the brigands robbed him blind, what would be left to him? He supposed they thought it’d be mighty generous to let him leave the forest with his life, but Merle wouldn’t settle with that. His possessions, his gold, and his valuables were just that—his. He wasn’t so possessive of them that anyone would compare him to a jealous dragon guarding his treasure horde, but Merle didn’t take too kindly to being robbed. It was bad for business. That being said, there were six fearsome-looking brigands—and only one of Merle.

While Merle was learned in the arcane arts, he didn’t particularly care to use those great and terrible magics on people—or any other living things for that matter. No, if Merle wanted to get out of this with more than just his life, he’d have to use his wits. Fortunately, Merle always kept his wits about him at all times—and even if he didn’t, he had wits to spare tucked away in one of his numerous jacket pockets.

He grinned back at the brigands and cracked his knuckles, waggling his fingers experimentally. He’d been in numerous worse spots before. He could get out of this one too. He was Merle the Merchant-Mage, wasn’t he?

He didn’t wait for the brigands to make the first move. He wanted to use that initial hesitation, that moment of surprise to his advantage.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Merle cried out and beckoned to them. “Step right up, step right up! Merle’s Shop of Trinkets and Goods is now up and open for business. Everything is half-off.”

He expertly flipped open his peddler’s cart’s lid, revealing the separated wooden compartments within. Some of them were full of ordinary rocks of different shapes and sizes. Others had bits of brightly colored string.

Merle’s displayed trinkets and goods were nothing to write home about. Odds and ends, really, that he had traded in past towns in exchange for a meal or a place to stay at night. The really expensive, fancy items were tucked away in his jacket and hidden in secret compartments on his peddler’s cart that only he knew. But Merle wasn’t about to share that particular piece of information with them. No, it was better for all of them—well, maybe just him—to think that all he had were a few shiny rocks and pieces of colorful string.

The brigands looked confused. This wasn’t how their routine usually went. People usually ran screaming from them—after they’d been robbed blind. Yet this merchant didn’t look at all fazed by their fearsome, terrifying appearances. And he was trying to sell them junk? What was going on?

Merle smiled patiently and beckoned again. “Come now—don’t be shy. As you can see, I have many different trinkets and goods—let’s make a deal!”

That snapped the brigands out of their momentary confusion. Hands tightened on rusty, sharp-looking weapons, and one of the brigands took another step closer to Merle.

“No deals,” he grunted through clenched, rotten teeth. “What’s stoppin’ us from simply takin’ everything you’ve got, eh?” The man glanced at Merle’s peddler’s cart. “Not that it looks like you have much worth stealin’.”

Merle sighed dramatically and spread out his hands in a speculative gesture. “What’s stopping you? Well, I’d hope some semblance of civility would do that, for starters.”

“What civility? We’re brigands.”

Merle shrugged and then nodded with understanding. “Yes, of course. If not for civility, then, perhaps you’d be willing to make a trade with me.”

“How’s that different from a deal?” One of the other brigands spoke, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.

“For one thing, it’s a different word,” Merle said. “For another—this is an incredible trade I’m going to offer you—a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, really. You’d be foolish to pass it up.”

He let his words trail off and hang there tantalizingly. It was like dangling a piece of meat before a starved beast. All six brigands took the bait without fail. They were no fools. Or, rather, they didn’t want anyone thinking of them to be fools.

“What’s the deal?” growled the leader.

Merle smiled. He reached into his peddler’s cart and pulled out an ordinary, unassuming-looking rock. He held it up before the brigands. “What do you see?”

“It’s just a rock,” guessed one of the brigands with good enough eyesight.

“So it would seem.” Merle smiled again. “But this is one of the magic rocks I bought off a traveling Merchant-Mage a few towns back—cost me just about all the gold I had, but it was totally worth it.  Observe.”

He closed his hand around the rock and concentrated. He muttered a few nonsensical words under his breath, too quietly for the brigands to hear him. When Merle opened his hand, they all gasped in shock. For there in his hand, they no longer saw what was “just a rock.” They saw a shiny lump of gold.

The leader of the brigands reached for it greedily, but Merle pulled his hand back, just as quickly. Face darkening with rage, the brigand raised his shortsword to strike the Merchant-Mage down where he stood.

“Ah-ah,” Merle cautioned, forestalling him. “If you kill me, you’ll never learn how to turn the rest of these magic rocks into gold. That secret will die with me, and you’ll be left with next to nothing. But,” he held up a bony finger, “if you let me live, I’ll teach you the magic words to say.”

He smiled grandly and leaned closer to the brigands, despite their foul stench. “That’s a pretty good trade, no? I keep my life, and you get rich beyond your wildest dreams.”

It did sound like a good trade to the brigands. It wasn’t. For them, at least, because it was, in fact, too good to be true. If they took a moment to think, the brigands would have seen the glaring plot holes in Merle’s fabrication.

They might have asked why a Merchant-Mage would ever sell magic rocks that turned to gold. Besides, no amount of magic could turn rocks into gold. Economists would have had a field day with those implications. But magic could make rocks look like gold. That it could do. The lump of gold they saw was really just a rock. But the brigands didn’t know that.

The leader mulled Merle’s proposition over. Then, he spat on his hand and held it out to Merle. Without blinking, without the smile ever leaving his face, Merle spat on his own hand, and they shook. The trade was made.

“What’re the words?”

Merle told him. “Querbity! Quibbilly! Quissistry!” The words themselves didn’t matter. Merle made them up on the spot. But the magic Merle used while saying them—that did matter. As he said the words, Merle concentrated, and another rock in his collection turned to gold. With shouts, the brigands scooped up the rest of the rocks from Merle’s peddler’s cart.

They began yelling out the “magic” words excitedly. It was bizarre to hear six murderous thieves shouting out in unison, “Querbity! Quibbilly! Quissistry!” Rocks seemed to turn to gold before their very eyes. They whooped with delighted grins.

Merle almost laughed. Almost. He coughed terribly instead and managed to keep it together for the most part because it wouldn’t do for him to blow his ruse now. Not when he was so close to pulling this off.

Merle rubbed his hands together nervously. “Well then, I’ll just be off, shall I?”

The brigands paid him no mind. The leader waved his hand dismissively at Merle as they huddled around their newfound wealth. Merle didn’t need to ask for further clarification. He knew what that meant. He was free to go.

Sweat trickled down the side of his head as he pushed his cart hurriedly down the winding dirt road through the forest, farther and farther away from the brigands. He didn’t hesitate or look back. He moved with a quickness he hadn’t realized his old bones still possessed. Only when he was a good and safe distance away did he slow to a more moderate pace and let out a nervous laugh. He took off his floppy, broadbrimmed hat and wiped his brow with the back of his sleeve.

Then, he laughed some more, thinking of the brigands gathered around plain old rocks, shouting nonsensical words at them. Put a whole new meaning to “fool’s gold,” didn’t it? The magic would wear off eventually, but with any amount of luck, they wouldn’t realize he had tricked them until he was far, far away. Preferably safe in the next town. Or the one after that.

Merle grinned happily to himself. He had to give up a few of his favorite rocks, but he could always find more. Besides, what were a few rocks compared to keeping all his other treasures—not to mention his life?

Merle the Merchant-Mage whistled a jaunty tune as he pushed his peddler’s cart along a winding dirt road in the Kingdom of Taman. When he got to the outskirts of the next town, the mid-morning sun was in the right spot for him to begin selling his many wares, baubles, beautiful gems, and trinkets. It was a beautiful day. Life was good, and so was business.

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