Deciding to act civilized, Chuggie poured wine into his own unused glass.
"I crept among those hogs,
invisible
. I could've walked right on top of any of 'em, and they'd just have thought it was the wind.
"I didn't have any weapons, mind you.
I
was the weapon. No conjury, neither. Just wits, cunning and balls. I leaned against the big male — the hog honcho — and I had a smoke. He never knew I was there, jus' that somethin' was wrong. He looked around in a panic while I puffed right behind his ear.
Faben narrowed her eyes and leaned back a little, like she was sizing Chuggie up.
"When I finished my smoke, I plunged my hand through his ribcage and tore out his liver." Chuggie shot his hand out and made a twisting motion. "That ole' hog turned and tried to gore me, but I fed him his own liver instead. A group of swine charged at me from the side, so I threw his twitching carcass at 'em. They flew through the air, squealing until they smacked into trees and boulders. Some of them came back at me, but I broke their spines with my fists.
"They blew fire on me and attacked in waves from afternoon till morning. When I finished, I strolled over to the big male and yanked out his tusks. I made this one into a pipe." He leaned his head back. "I like a smoke with my bacon."
"Let me see how it smokes." Faben grabbed the pipe from Chuggie and held it to her lips. She closed her eyes half way, inhaled deeply, and exhaled a plume of smoke. While her expression didn't change, Chuggie knew she was experiencing new heights of smoky bliss.
"It'll do." She handed the pipe back.
"It'll do," Chuggie sputtered. "You just smoked the finest pipe in all the land."
Faben rolled her eyes. "How come I've never seen you before, Mr. Norgit Mutt Lazy-tot?"
"
Nor
–
chug Mot Lo-si-at.
But everyone calls me Chuggie."
"You new in town?
Norgmuggie?
What brings you here?"
He grinned as he realized she was giving him a little shit with regards to his name. He respected that.
"Came to town to see a fellow name of Arden Voss."
"You don't say." Faben scratched her chin and studied Chuggie. "What you want with him?"
Chuggie shrugged. "Doesn't he, y'know, run the town?"
"You really aren't from around here, are you?"
The drunk two tables away guffawed and mentioned to someone they owed him money. The table of girls rose and fell in tides of ear-stabbing laughter. The singer onstage broke into a ballad about murder and an instance of double dealing. "That would be a factual statement," Chuggie said.
"Arden Voss is an old man. He doesn't run anything anymore." Faben helped herself to another slug of Chuggie's wine. She didn't bother pouring it in a glass this time. "The Chief Magistrate these days is a man by the name of Haste. What do you need with the Chief Magistrate, anyhow?"
Questions aplenty sprouted in his mind like witchgrass. This Faben dame seemed interested in asking more questions than she wanted to answer. Didn't she understand his questions were more important? No, she clearly did not. He'd have to indulge her a little if he wanted any information out of her.
"Couple of days ago, some guards stopped me from coming into the city," Chuggie said. "They told me I had to go north. Said there'd be easy passage and an old bridge to cross the river. That make any sense to you?"
"North?" Faben leaned forward. "Did you go?"
"Nah," said Chuggie. "I waited for dark an' went south. What's so special about the north?"
"Anybody who knows isn't saying. But when people mess around up there, they end up as a gut-pile found by patrols, if they're found at all. And for reasons I can't figure out it's the Carnies most often that end up that way."
"You've got a special soft spot for the Carnies?"
"Being I'm one of 'em." Faben scowled. "And I'm tired of scraping my friends and relatives off the side of the road."
She furrowed her eyebrows until they met right over her nose,
then leaned closer to Chuggie. "If you ask me, the Magistrates have something to do with whatever's up north."
Chuggie nodded and puffed. "Yeah, somethin's rotten up there. My hostages pretty much told me so."
"Hostages?" Faben froze with the bottle one inch from her mouth.
"When I came into town tonight, I got attacked by some guys on the way. I masterfully subdued 'em and made 'em bring me into town. They brought me to The Gulping Goat."
"Ha." Faben snorted. "And them whores let you out without a hitch in your walk?"
Chuggie pointed to himself with both thumbs. "I fought 'em off with an ax and a can o' beans. The service in there left somethin' to be desired."
Faben smirked knowingly. "You got to buy koochie to get friendly service there. Who do you think it was attacked you in the woods?"
"Names were Stinkface Dan and Jaron the Mutt," Chuggie said.
"I don't know any Stinkfaces or Mutts," she said.
"Guess they were supposed to kill me." He ran a thumb across his throat in a slitting gesture and poured some wine down his throat. "I'll give 'em credit, though. They had good position on me out in the woods. They were just five or six different kinds of sloppy."
"Sounds about right," Faben nodded. She lowered her voice until it was barely audible over the music. "For all the trouble these people causing for everyone they about got as much sense as a sack of gravel. Somebody who's got some sense ought to be able to knock them down a notch."
Billiard balls cracked. Across the room, a glass smashed to the floor.
Faben jumped and looked over her shoulder.
"What're you afraid of?" Chuggie asked.
"Nothing." Faben said louder than necessary.
"When someone's as jumpy as a frog in heat, that tells me they're afraid of something."
"Can't be too careful these days. You can get arrested and locked down just for talking to the wrong person in Stagwater. No offense, Chuckie, but I don't know if you're a wrong person." She swigged the wine.
Chuggie puffed on his pipe as he pondered this idea. "These guys that jumped me… they said they worked for a magistrate name of Kale."
Faben sat up straight. "None of the magistrates do jack shit on their own. All of 'em take their marching orders from Haste." She looked around to see if anyone might be eavesdropping. "If Kale wanted you dead, so does Haste. You got
some
body's attention over there."
"That's good because I need to have myself a talk with this Haste fellow."
"Even though he wants to kill you?"
"
Especially
though he wants to kill me," Chuggie smirked.
"Why do you want to see him about?"
"I'm going to see the man about a goat."
"Pfshaw, keep your secret business
secret
, then. But you better watch out for the Steel Jacks. They'll get your secrets out of you if you cross their path."
Chuggie knew more about Steel Jacks than he cared to. Their alien kind had been on his butt like a bear on honeycomb for as long as he could remember. Those
rift-crawlers
always had some sort of proposal for him. From the time they first stepped out of the Tetracardi Rift three centuries ago, they seemed a little
too
eager to help. They claimed the rift opened one way, and that they couldn't go back through. True or not, there was no way to verify this, since the Steel Jacks had put that crackling tear in reality on lock down. He never trusted their otherworldly motives, and their offers always stunk of fine print obligations.
"So Brassline, you ever do any dancing?" Chuggie cocked his thumb in the direction of a sad little cluster of dancers swaying in front of the stage.
"Not with the likes of you, I don't." Faben crossed her arms over her chest.
"Aw, come on. I'll teach you." Chuggie held out his hand.
"I know how. I'm just not doing it. If you know what's good for you, you won't ask me again."
"All right, all right." Chuggie let his hand drop. "I had this pal once who said a woman who won't dance with you can't be trusted because they're always secretly plotting to have you killed. I think that part had more to do with the kinds of women Korkorahn shacked up with, but —."
"You know that name?" Faben's eyes grew wide.
"Korkorahn?" Chuggie asked, loud enough that she squirmed in her seat.
She put a finger to her lips. "Shh, are you crazy? You
can't
talk about him."
"You know him?"
"Yeah, I know him. Keep your fucking voice down. He brought all us Carnies here." Faben glanced over her shoulder and leaned closer. She whispered. "I'm the summoner for The Great Korkorahn's Traveling Carnival of Wonderment and Oddities."
"You don't say. Ain't that fuggin' something." Chuggie grinned. "This world is about as small as… good ole Korkorahn, how the hell is he."
"Shhh!" Faben clamped her hand over her mouth to demonstrate when the people at the next table turned to look. She took out a scrap of paper and a pen. She scribbled and handed the paper to Chuggie. "This is my address. Visit tomorrow and we'll talk. But not here." Faben jumped up from her chair and rushed out the back door.
"Hmmph. Could've said good night, you know." Chuggie picked up the wine bottle and tilted it on its side. "Empty."
"Closing time." Baker called out. He flickered the lights.
"Suppose I ought to put myself to bed." Chuggie lurched out of his chair and waded through the people leaving the bar.
"Excuse me, stranger," said a youthful-looking woman with startling red hair. Her silky white wrap clung to her body like a wet sheet.
"Apologies, my dear," said Chuggie, amused with himself for dozens of drunken reasons and trying not to stare at her breasts.
A pair of drunks rammed into Chuggie. "Hey, watch where you're going ass-hole," the tallest one said.
"Yeah," the other agreed.
Their loud, slurring voices turned to yelps of pain as the young redhead punched them both in their stomachs. They hunched over, wailing and holding their guts, then shoved their way to the door and disappeared into the night.
"I'm Fey Voletta." The young woman held out her hand.
She had some sort of darkish fluid on her hand, but in the dim bar light, he couldn't tell what it was. He gave her a sloppy, oafish handshake.
"Ray Fervetta, it's nice to meet you. I'd love to stay and chat, but about now bed-ways is best-ways." Chuggie smiled, tipped an invisible hat brim, and stumbled past her.
He lurched up to the bar. "Baker, my friend, is this a good place to rent a room?"
Baker grinned. "Twenty bucks an hour."
"I'm not talkin' about a bonin' room," Chuggie said. "I'm talkin' about a sleepin' room."
The bartender laughed. "We have those, too, if sleeping is what you really want to do. Sixty a night."
Chuggie chuckled and shook his head. "I think I'll be heading to my room now."
"Yes sir," Baker said as he stepped from behind the bar and opened a door.
Chuggie plodded down a poorly lit staircase. The rough-sawn stairs creaked with each step. The basement was eerie in its dark, empty silence. If he had to leave in the night, he could be in trouble.
The bare cement of the floor glistened with moisture. He lurched from side to side, bouncing off cracked plaster walls until he arrived at a door with a yellow number '12' painted upon it in.
"This is it," Baker pointed.
Chuggie shoved the key into the lock.
The small, dank room stunk like a wet dog, but at least there were no damnable windows. The glassy bastards always seemed to let the sun in hours earlier than necessary. Chuggie splashed onto the bed. It smelled of dust and mold, but that didn't bother him in the least. It had been a very long time since he'd had a real bed under his back.
The last clomping footsteps left the bar above as Chuggie watched the ceiling spin. Lying on his back, he grabbed the edge of the bed to keep from falling off. He did his best to enjoy the ride.
As the room slowly grew drier and drier around him, Chuggie drifted ever closer to sleep. Questions stampeded through his mind like a herd of goats on fire. He tried to ponder them, one by one, but somnias, mischievous little slumber-sprites, danced behind his eyelids and pulled him down into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Pounding, pounding. Horrible, hell-born noise hammered at Chuggie's head as he fought to stay asleep. What vile sound chiseled at his dreams? Had the gathered demons of every hell massed upon his brow?
"Are you in there, sir?" a distinctly human voice called from the other side of waking.
"No!" Chuggie rasped. His voice answered on its own. "There's nobody here!"
"There is a Steel Jack waiting for you upstairs." Baker's voice sounded even more agitated than it normally did.
Chuggie groaned. He sat up squinting at the door. "What does it want?"
"Mr. Non says he'd like to help you. He says he is at your disposal. I'd like to strongly encourage you come upstairs and meet with him?"
Chuggie shuffled over to the door and pulled it open. With one eye squeezed shut, he glared at Baker. The man twitched and fidgeted so fiercely, Chuggie was amazed he hadn't come out of his shoes.
"How do I get you to go away?" he grumbled.
"I'm honestly more concerned with how I get the Steel Jack to go away. He wants you to go upstairs and see him. Please, please, go and see him." Baker no longer wore his bar-sign collar, but he rubbed nervously where it had been. His gaunt face spoke of no sleep, little food, and plentiful paranoia.
Chuggie buried his face in his hands. With a gesture, he could tear the water from Baker's body. That would put the poor bastard out of his misery. And if he were a thirteen pound dried-out husk, Chuggie could get some sleep. Of course, Chuggie would likely lose control and wipe out the entire city. He sighed, and instead of committing mass murder, he gathered his things and followed Baker down the hall.
"You folks ought to clean these rooms. Enough mold down here to choke a fuggin' goat," he said as he climbed the rickety stairs.