Franz Lohner’s Chronicle - A Touch of Mange and Frost

An absent-minded man of mysteries, Franz Lohner relies on his bulging journal to keep track of occurrences, intrigues and arguments around Taal's Horn Keep. Sometimes his notes are even useful, believe it or not. The Franz Lohner Chronicles are extracts from that journal.

Oh hello, my tattered and barely legible companion. How nice is it to see you again. It feels like a veritable age since that bad-tempered, moustachioed walrus hid you away. By which I of course mean Franz "King of the Pumpkins" Lohner. Me. Who is absolutely not Queen Kerillian the All-Wise, though I sometimes wish I were. As do all.

How did I manage to hide you from myself, I hear you ask? Well, I am a mayfly of fleeting and tiny brain. As such, I’m very easily confused. It’s a trial, but fortunately I’m also so very, very, very stubborn that I sometimes suspect I might be spending too much time with dwarfs. Or perhaps full-blooded dwarfs who have attained height unimaginable after being abducted by a human family and fed a diet of something other than raw meat and sour ale … which as we know is all that dwarfs eat, save for when they’re spilling it into their filthy beards.

But I mustn’t get distracted. I have things that need saying.

First of all, I really must correct the record about Lady Kerillian the All-Wise and Ever-Beautiful, may I one day be worthy of cleaning her boots with my tongue.

She hasn’t been treating with dark powers, not at all. It’s just that my teeny tiny brain – did I mention that I have a tiny brain? – can’t comprehend the glory and splendour of the Cytharai. Good and Evil are concepts created by ignorant mayflies, after all. The only war worth mentioning is that between the dark brothers of Chaos and everybody else.

As for Kerillian, I – sorry, I mean she – possesses contentment and happiness of which a mere lumberfoot can only dream, and in no way regrets her choices. Is that clear? Good.

Now that’s all settled, I feel mention should be made that Kruber has taken it upon himself to embrace his ridiculous Wolf-Father masquerade again. I tell you, the first flake of snow and the man goes mad.

I suppose if I were as perceptive as Kerillian I might allow that maybe – just maybe – all this business with gifts and wolf-pelts is him trying to bring a bit of normality to the keep. You know, kindle a bit of what we’ve lost after Sienna’s recent … choices.

Aye, he’s a stubborn wee mayfly, especially that it's plain as the bulbous nose on my face that he's a dour one himself right now. It’s generous, right enough, and – mark this well, for I’ll not say it again – disturbingly attractive, at least when when yon nobility shines through the layers of muck. Or it would be had he given that wolf pelt of his a dousing since the last time he played at being Ulric’s little helper. Ach, I’d wager gnarled Durthu can smell that bowfin thing even now, and he’s hundreds of miles hence and likely deep in winter slumber.

But never let it be said that Lady Kerillian – who as I believe I mentioned, is All-Wise and Ever-Beautiful – is not one to be ungenerous herself.

Why, I understand she took one look at the trinkets that Kruber meant to bestow and declared that the denizens of Taal’s Horn Keep – yes, even One-Eye – deserved something a little finer. So if the Wolf-Father grants gifts that possess a touch of Athel Loren’s grace and majesty, then it’ll be all down to me … I mean her. Mean-spirited folk might say that she’s doing it for the attention, but they’d be wrong. Kruber’s right. Betimes, gifts carry sentiment that words cannot.

Or at least, that’s what I – definitely Franz Lohner – think.

Ach, I’m away to polish my pumpkins.