About me
Okay, so I’m a mouse. Let’s get that out of the way right now. There’s no rule that says heroines have to be human. In fact, given the IQ of most of my buddies, such a rule could be seen as a slur on humans. But I’m not species-ist. Some of my best friends are human.
I was a middle pup born in a litter of twelve. Given the circumstances, it’s incredible that my mother could remember that much — and completely irrelevant. When you have twelve hungry babies vying for a teat, it makes more sense to sort them by who is the best at getting fed. That would be me.
I wasn’t the biggest, but I was the loudest, the most determined, the most agile and the smartest. I was definitely not the most modest.
I grew up in a cornfield. My earliest clear memory is when I was a hopper, clinging to a corn stalk for a panoramic view of the field, while my brothers and sisters ran in frantic circles below, warning me about hawks. The Almighty used this memory in one of my first boss digging commands —
I see a field of golden grain – surveyed, from the tallest stalk, by a hungry mouse.
I guess he thought I would respond better to something familiar. Ho, ho, ho, more fool him. I paid it no more attention than I paid to many of his other exhortations.
The Almighty and I, we have an arrangement. He commands, I ignore. I need, he fails to deliver. I can tell he gets pretty frustrated at times, but when you’re a mouse you have to stand up to bullies. Let him just once think he’s got away with something and it’ll be “do this, do that” until I zig when I should zag and it’s all over (again) for Mouse.
Tragedy
I guess you’re wondering how and why a happy little mouse became a heroine. Well, I was about seven weeks old and thinking of moving out and shacking up with Hyrcanicus, the handsome field mouse from next door. My family were house mice originally, so of course everyone was aghast at this. “What about children? You’re not even the same genus!” There was quite a ruckus over it, and sad to say, tails were bitten and ears torn before it was sorted out that I was going to have my way and everyone else had better get used to it.
Hyrcanicus and I finally moved to the next field to get away from the inter-species scandal. It was just as well for us that we did, because that very night, a geronimoose saw a hero across the width of the old field and charged him. The monster put his hoof down on my family’s home, and just like that, I was an orphan. The very next stomp went down on Hyrcanicus’ family, so he was orphaned too.
We ran out and nipped at the beast’s heels, winning the hero — whose name was Thulkred — the moment he needed to get his weapon into the monster’s heart. He was very grateful for the assistance, and left us a stock of food and beer.
We cleaned up the bodies and salvaged what we could from the ruin. We kept some of the family heirlooms and auctioned the rest, and then we tried to pick up our lives.
It was not fated to be. Our role in the demise of the geronimoose had been observed, and a gang of monsters armed with shovels raided our home. They dug us out and staked us down beside the road for the sport of passers-by. These were mostly the smaller breeds of monster, as the larger ones would simply overlook us. But what they lacked in size, the smaller ones made up for in spite. Hyrcanicus was attacked brutally; for me they reserved more delicate humiliations.
“Stay strong, beloved!” I squeaked to him, “I love you!”
That night, I managed to work one of the stakes loose and it was then just a few minutes’ work to gnaw through the remaining cords. I dashed to Hyrcanicus’ side, only to find that he had bled to death from his wounds. Overcome with grief, caring nothing for what may come, I cast myself upon his cooling corpse and clung to him, hoping against hope and flinging prayers to the uncaring heavens.
Vengeance
A gentle blue glow descended from the skies, although, lost in my grief, I did not see it. I suddenly realised that my wounds were healed, my strength was renewed, and my hatred of monsters was fanned to a fiery scorch in my breast. I did not know the cause, and I asked no questions. I took some stakes and some cord as weapons, and set forth to avenge my beloved Hyrcanicus.
Over the next few days, it was whispered in monster circles that a demon was haunting the fields. Many monsters were found, bound, hanging from trees, with stakes through their eyes. Posses were formed, hunting whatever creature was big enough to overcome a full-grown philosoraptor, hoist it from the ground, and then hammer a stake through its eye. They never noticed the tiny brown mouse scurrying between their feet.
In fact the philosoraptor was easy prey. As soon as he realised he was being attacked by a mouse, he got so immersed in trying to figure out my motives that I was able to truss him up like a moth in a spider web. I drove a stake into his eye to kill him, then pounded some stakes into the ground and winched him into the air, inch by inch.
The carnage among the smaller monsters was even worse. I would wait until one was out of sight of anyone else, and then leap from ambush. I would hamstring him with my teeth then finish him off with a stake to the eye.
Redemption
One night I was twitching in my hideout, pursued by nightmares, when my Lord, Hyper Bolus, came to me in a dream. All heroes have this encounter, so I guess I don’t need to recount all the details here. He explained to me that he had healed me that day on the road, that he was impressed by my deeds since then, and that he wanted to help me continue my vengeance in future.
He warned me that if I kept on as I was, sooner or later I would be caught and killed. Nobody resurrects mice, so that would be the end of me. But if I became a heroine, I would become serially — perhaps he meant seriously, the reception was poor — immortal and a scourge to my enemies.
I accepted his offer, of course, otherwise I would not be writing this. And so I became a heroine.
Recovery
The return of sanity was like the worst hangover imaginable. What have I done? Since I was also suffering that exact hangover at the moment I recovered my sanity, the combined pain nearly drove me mad.
For some reason, becoming a heroine forced me to change my monster-killing tactics. I was still tiny, still a mouse, but I could no longer lurk behind bushes waiting for incautious monsters. I had to take to the road and meet them heroically — meaning head-on. The most I could force myself to do was to scurry through the grass verges instead of walking down the centre of the road, which gave me a slight element of surprise.
For weeks I dwelt in a borderland of grief and hate, pain and alcohol, living to kill and killing to live. I cared nothing for temples, questing, or digging up bosses. I just wanted to kill monsters, to make them feel some fraction of the fear and rage that still roared through my now-heroic frame like a typhoon. Whatever gold I gathered went into the tills of the taverns I frequented.
My first death was a relief. For a few hours after the Terror Bull first gored me and then trampled me into the dirt, I was free! I was tethered to my body, but able to roam a short distance, able to think, to take stock.
I hoped that I might meet Hyrcanicus while I was in the afterlife, but I guess heroes and mice don’t go to the same afterlife, because all I saw were some other dead heroes in the distance — tethered, like me, to their inert bodies.
Eventually a shock went through me. My body vanished from the ground and reappeared in a temple in Godville. I felt myself sucked back into it, like a bug down a drain. The first breath I drew burned in my reborn lungs like flame.
I expected the rage to be waiting for me, but it was not. When my Lord resurrected me, part of me seemed to stay dead. I embraced this new darkness, but it faded within a few hours, leaving me merely grey and empty.
I fought on. More slain monsters, more deaths, more resurrections. With each death I became emptier, with each resurrection my life held less meaning. I took to drinking on the road, seeking to fill the void within me with alcohol.
One day I was killing a firefox. I leaped and spun in a drunken frenzy, slashing at it, forcing it back and back until it could retreat no further. It fell! I raised my weapon to deal the finishing blow, but at that moment it caught my eye. Something gleamed there that was not hate. My arm trembled, then lowered. The monster licked my paw, its tongue the size of my entire body. Something within me cracked. My sight blurred.
I fainted. And when I awoke, I was sane.
Happier times
I awoke with my cheek pillowed on fur. I normally woke to a fur pillow, but this morning was special as the fur belonged to my beloved Hyrcanicus.
Across the room, the rest of the family lay in a restless heap – disturbed from time to time by squeaks from those sleeping upon and grumbles from those being slept upon. That had been my nest too, before last night, but although they had reluctantly accepted my choice of partner, the family would not welcome him into the communal bed.
I snuggled a moment longer, then stood up and stretched. We were going to finish our new home today, and I was keen to be at it. Hyrcanicus chittered at my movement, but slept on.
I scurried from the bedroom into the living room and then into the pantry. The centre of the pantry floor held a flat wooden disc, the kitchen table, patiently gnawed into shape years ago by a couple of talented uncles. The wood grain held a whorl that had been cunningly accentuated to suggest a mouse in profile. The same uncles, working in great secrecy, had just finished a similar table for me, and today we planned to install it! I could hardly wait to see what design they had come up with.
On the table was an ear of corn with a few uneaten kernels still on it. My sharp teeth made short work of two kernels. That took care of breakfast.
Back In the living room, I stopped to admire the woven-grass ankh that my mother was making as a wedding gift to hang in our bedroom. Our family were expert weavers, and my mother was the best of us. She was not pleased that her daughter was marrying a field mouse, but she was determined to ensure that at least nobody could fault our furnishings! I did not have her skill at weaving, but I was already adept at making braided cord from chewed corn stalks.
I ran up the tunnel to the surface, slowing down near the entrance to listen, to sniff the air and to peer out. I could not sense any danger on the ground, but a shadow across the sun warned me of danger overhead.
While I waited for the shadow to pass, something tweaked my tail. I whirled, to find Hyrcanicus grinning at me.
“Mmm, tasty! You’ll make some hawk a fine meal someday.”
My anger melted, but I wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily.
“Slug-a-bed! You could have had breakfast in bed if you’d woken up earlier.”
The hawk moved on, and we scuttled out into the sunshine, squeaking happily and fossicking in the litter on the ground.
We ran up through the home field and through a drainage hole in the stone fence that divided it from the next field. A small tree stood in one corner of the new field, one root crooking up like a bent knee. Beneath that root was the entrance to our new home.
My uncles were waiting, resting beside a massive lump wrapped in large leaves. I ran up to the lump and rapped it with a paw. It thunked like wood. My uncles laughed.
“Yes,” said Uncle One.
“Leave it wrapped for now,” said Uncle Two, “the leaves are there to protect it until it’s in place.”
Hyrcanicus had not wasted time on byplay. He had pulled a coil of woven cord from a hiding-place, tied one end to the base of a stake firmly embedded in the ground, then run up the tree root with the loose end between his teeth. He dropped it over a projecting stump of a snapped-off rootlet so that the end hung down to the ground.
I tugged on the end and with my uncles’ help we secured the cord around the kitchen table – for the wooden lump could be nothing else.
Hyrcanicus went to a nearby tree and fetched another coil. This one was already tied around a sturdy root: the free end was tied into a loop. He dropped the loop over the top of the stake.
I fetched a long stick and inserted it into the knot on the stake. Then all four of us grabbed the end of the stick and ran in a circle around the stake, turning it so that the cord wound around it.
This was easy at first, but soon the slack was taken up and we had to slow down, dig our feet in and push hard.
Majestically, the table rose from the ground and swayed in the air. We cheered!
Uncle One stopped pushing the stick and went over to push the table instead. It floated over the rocks that surrounded the entrance to the mouse-hole, and then tilted down into the entry tunnel. Carefully we eased off on the winch and let the table slide down the tunnel.
Just as the last of the wound rope came off the stake, the table stopped moving.
“It’s down safe!” said Uncle One, “Nicely done everyone!”
We ran down the tunnel and found the table wedged upright in a trench we had prepared for it yesterday. We removed the rope and carefully rolled the table through the living room and into the pantry, where it was at last permitted to fall flat on the dry sand that had been laid down ready for it.
Shivering with delicious anticipation I tore away the protective leaves, revealing the intricately worked table top – with not one but two beautifully engraved mouse heads on it!
“Oh uncles, it’s lovely!” I ran to each uncle in turn and licked their faces.
That night Hyrcanicus and I drifted off to sleep together in our own sturdy, snug little home, far from the cold shoulders and dismissive sniffs of our families. It was the happiest moment of my life.
I awoke with my cheek pillowed on fur. I snuggled happily, until a large wet tongue nearly smothered me. I squeaked indignantly and opened my eyes.
I was in a slovenly inn room in Godville. The fur and the tongue belonged to my pet Firefox, Rex. His eyes glowed with what might have been affection, but was probably just hunger. He licked me again.
“Alright already, I’m awake!” I said, and rolled out of the pet hamper we shared – much more comfortable than the lumpy, beer-reeking bed that squatted against one wall.
I went over to the window and looked out. Another grim day was dawning above the clustered golden rooftops. Another day of loneliness and eternal, pointless questing.
Rex whined.
“Hold your horses!” I told him, but I was buckling on my armour. “OK, you big baby, let’s go find some breakfast.”
Breakfast of Champions
Down in the street, yawning traders were unlocking the wooden shutters that protected their shop fronts by night. I climbed up on Rex’s back and we walked through a couple of alleyways, to emerge above the Town Square.
Across the way, Temple Row glinted on its ridge like some demented dentist’s fantasy. No two temples were alike, and they were crammed together like gold teeth on a denture – or perhaps like barnacles on a ship’s hull. Most had wood piled beside them now, and some were overshadowed by partially built Arks. Finding the space to fit an Ark behind a temple that had been built cheek by jowl with its neighbours was quite a trick, but – miraculously – that trick had been achieved.
Space in Godville is remarkably elastic. It needs to be, to accommodate all the fountains and memorials and other objects generated by miracles and other holy influences cast by the gods.
Nestled in a cramped valley between hills, the Town Square is proof of this.
There were so many obelisks and fountains and statues crammed in down there that it seemed no more could possibly fit, but even as I watched there was a blaze of golden light and a new beer fountain appeared, adorned with the faces of some obscure guild. It popped up between a statue of some guild founder and a huge monument carved with runes dedicated to another guild, where previously I would have sworn there was not space enough even for me to squeeze between them.
Off to my left there was a sudden chorus of cheering. Blocking that end of the valley, the Arena was practically rocking on its foundations. There must be a tournament on today.
I nudged Rex along the terrace to Kettle Belly’s Beer and Chips Emporium, one of Godville’s lesser known establishments but my personal favourite because Kettle Belly loved pets. He adored Rex, and was always amused to see us enter. A firefox is not generally considered a rideable pet, and a mouse riding a monster is unusual even for Godville. Kettle Belly never got tired of the sight.
“Yo, Mousie!” he said. He was already pouring two beers – one into a thimble, for me, and another into a bowl, for Rex.
“Yo, Kettle Belly! Still sampling your wares I see.”
He patted his ample belly. “Purely for quality control, I assure you. I’ll be right over with these. Make yourself at home.”
I looked around. The place was pretty empty, but I saw Thulkred slouched over a pint. His young double dragon, Nessie hulked behind him – barely fitting into the alcove Kettle Belly had designed to accommodate large pets.
“Hey, Thulk,” I said, jumping from Rex onto the table top. Thulkred focused on me blearily – clearly already several glasses into his traditional breakfast.
“Oh, hi, Mousie! Where ya been? ’S been days since I seen you around.”
“Epic quest. I went all the way out to Lostway, this time. Got five logs of wood and a whatchamacallit.”
“Sounds good, sounds good.” He examined his empty pint. “Say, I’m a little short of cash and my tab is maxed out – think you can stand a thirsty man a drink?”
“You still haven’t paid me back for the last lot I bought you!”
“Ah c’mon, be a sport. I’m due to start an epic of my own today and it could be days before I get back to any place with decent grog.”
I looked over at Kettle Belly. He was already on his way – and there was a pint sitting on his tray beside my thimble and Rex’s bowl. It was a conspiracy. I sighed and paid for the round. Rex nosed the pint across to Thulkred before plunging his snout into his bowl. That was quite a sacrifice. My pet is a lush, but he likes Thulkred.
Thulkred was looking at me. “You look rough.”
“I didn’t sleep well.”
“Nightmares? I thought you was all done with those.”
“So did I.” I rubbed my forehead, then braced myself and hefted my foaming thimble for a solid gulp. “I’m nearly ten months old now – more than eight months as a heroine. Most mice my age have had half a dozen litters. I’m becoming an old spinster!”
Thulkred snorked into his pint, spattering foam. “You’re not a mouse now, you’re a heroine. Know what, it’s odd, but I ain’t never seen a pregnant heroine. Ya think our gods do something, y’know, when they turn us into heroes?”
I changed the topic. “How are you making out? Why are you short of money – you should be rolling in it, what with the dungeons and all.”
He looked evasive. “I had a few expenses. Some guys needed paying off.”
“Gambling debts again?”
“Naw. OK, if ya must know, I hadda pay a Beerburgh trader for a disguise and some drayers for a place in the smugglers’ hole in their wagon to get outa town.”
“Go on.” I was intrigued.
“Aww, it weren’t nothing much. I promised a guy I would marry his daughter. He thought I was a local farm boy. When he found I was a hero, he was fit to be tied. Claimed he didn’t need no shiftless thievin’ ugly hero as son in law. Gods! It weren’t like she were a looker. So then he wanted the dowry back, but I’d already spent it on beer. I promised him I’d go withdraw some money from my savings, and got out of town before he knew I was on the lam.”
“Wait, you’d drunk the dowry and that’s why you couldn’t pay him back. But then how could you afford to buy a costume and to bribe the drayers?”
“Well … I ain’t exactly paid them for that yet.”
I laughed. “Sounds like this epic quest of yours is coming along just in time.”
“Let’s just say I hope I don’t haveta go into Beerburgh for a rest on my way out. Para Bolus has been kinda slow with the resurrections lately, if ya see what I mean.”
It was a long, happy breakfast, but eventually I had to say goodbye so that I could go back to my inn to check out. As I rode through Godville clinging to the red mane of my firefox, I felt a warm buzz inside me. It could have been the beer, but I knew it wasn’t.
Life isn’t the beer you drink, but the friends you drink it with. It was good to have friends again.