The pub was dark, lit only by a single oil lantern, and that turned low. This was not due to any cheapness on the part of the proprietor, it was simply how his patrons liked it. Business tonight was, as usual, slow but, also as usual, steady. Three lawyers in the corner argued softly and amiably over the finer points of ancient cases, gesturing with wide, shallow glasses of jenever as they each put forward arguments worn smooth through repetition. Two tax clerks drank their beers without comment, each comfortable in the other’s silence. The women who worked at the haberdashery next door sat together, sipping at wine and chattering quietly about the trials of the day. And at the end of the bar, perched on his stool like an affable vulture, hands clasped around his glass, was the man in the hat. He was probably some kind of clerk, or maybe a lawyer of the more bookish variety, or an alchemist, or perhaps a scientist of some kind–he was quiet and private, though friendly enough if approached or when ordering; he spoke crisply and with warmth in his voice, his accent cultured yet difficult to place, his manner polite and his smile genuine, and the sparkle in his deep blue eyes could not be thought of as unappealing, and yet …
… and yet …
… and yet nobody spoke to him twice.
Not ever.
If this bothered the man in the hat, he didn’t show it–but then, he didn’t show much of anything. Every night at around six o’clock he came into the bar, and every night at around nine o’clock he left the bar, and in the hours between his coming and his going he would order and presumably drink four glasses of malt whisky (certainly by the time he got up to leave there were always four empty glasses upon the bar in front of his stool, but it was difficult to recall him ever actually raising a glass to drink from it).
This routine seemed to make the man in the hat happy, because he always had a slight smile on his face, and, well, he kept coming back, didn’t he? Yes, he did. Every night for over three years now, ever since the current proprietor of the pub had taken it over, and perhaps longer than that. Every night he’d walk in, go to his stool (which was, somehow, always empty for him), order his first whisky, and then sit there hunched over it, holding the glass as if it were something precious, the way his hat hung over his face making it impossible to see where his focus lay, what he was looking at. His thoughts, too, were impossible to fathom. One might assume that he was thinking of the past, an assumption that would be partially correct. His routine was regular, reliable, somehow reassuring.
In at six.
Four glasses of whisky.
Out at nine.
Regular as the sun setting and the moon rising.
Six. Four. Nine.
Six. Four. Nine.
Six. Four. Nine.
Six, four, nine, every day, six, four, nine, without fail, six, four, nine, never missing a night.
Except once. Except tonight.
He had come in at six. He had ordered his first whisky. But it was still untouched when he rose, slowly pushing himself up from his seat, staring at the wooden shelves opposite, at the nondescript bottles they held, the look in his eyes both wondrous and unsettling. He remained standing like this for over a minute, staring, muttering softly under his breath, occasionally shaking his head as if to dismiss some errant, unwelcome thought, and then he turned and, with a small nod to the proprietor, perhaps of thanks, perhaps of apology, he walked out of the pub, leaving his untouched glass of whisky behind, never to return.
Seven years later the pub would be completely destroyed.
This was not entirely coincidental.
Next:
I
The Gathering Storm
