Non stopped at the far end of the hall in front of a gilded door slightly larger than the others. A silver plaque displayed the engraved words
Chief Magistrate
. The door was probably worth more than the combined wealth of Carnietown. The entire hallway felt like an insult. Chuggie wanted to piss on the doors and set the paintings ablaze.
Non raised a massive hand to knock.
"Hang on," Chuggie said. "These guys have tried to kill me twice so far."
"They won't try again," Non buzzed. "You are under my protection."
"That ain't what I mean." Chuggie waved his hand dismissively. "I'm sayin' I'm madder than a one-armed gravedigger."
"I do not understand that expression," said Non.
"Means I'm liable to raise my voice in there. Pound a table. Break a chair. I jus' wanna prepare you." Chuggie clutched his anchor.
"I see." Non knocked.
"Enter!" a man called from within.
Chuggie put on his most serious scowl and stepped into the office after Non.
A man with the physique of a potato sat at a desk that took up a whole corner of the room. At his right hovered another man with broad shoulders and a flared-nostril scowl. His jacket shone with more buttons and trim than any real colonel's coat ever had. And to the fat man's left, a little man wearing fancy-looking preacher clothes squeezed a little gold idol hanging from his neck like he could get some juice out of it. He grinned like an idiot crocodile. Upon seeing Chuggie standing in the doorway, all three of them froze like somebody cast a statue curse on them.
"Mr. Haste, Mr. Kale, Mr. Fitch, may I present Norchug Mot Losiat, a true traveler of the world." Non gave a flourish and a little bow.
The men stared like haunted paintings. Were these clowns responsible for two attempts on his life? That went a long way in explaining why both tries had failed.
"Norchug Mot Losiat," Haste, the fat one, finally spoke up. That must have been why he was the leader — sharpest reflexes. The tall military looking fellow crossed his arms and glared at Chuggie. None of them held out a hand for Chuggie to shake.
"It's just Chuggie. That's what you call me."
"What is your business in Stagwater?" Haste asked like he was used to getting his questions answered.
Chuggie turned to the scowler. "Kale, right? You're friends with Stinkface Dan and Jaron the Mutt, aren't you?"
Kale's eyes flashed for an instant, with fear or guilt. He looked at Haste, then back to Chuggie. Then, as if to hide his momentary lack of composure, he drew his mouth into an angry line.
"They said you paid 'em to kill me. What'd you do that for?" Chuggie felt his temperature rising.
"What is your business in my city?" Haste pounded his desk.
In earlier times, Chuggie would have given into the thirst as soon as that fat hand struck the desktop. He tried to calm himself with thoughts of Shola. Chuggie narrowed his eyes and answered without looking away from Kale. "I hoped I might buy somethin' and be on my way. Thought you might be able to help me."
Non's voice buzzed low and menacing. "We want you to help him find what he is looking for."
Fitch, the preacher, flinched and ducked backward at the sound of Non's voice. For a supposed man of the cloth, he sure acted like he had something troubling his conscience.
Haste cast a disbelieving glare at the Steel Jack. His jowly face turned a strange shade of purple. "And what…
what
am I supposed to help you find?" He turned his gaze on Chuggie.
"It's this purse, y'see." Chuggie smirked. It was better to have his opponents be the angry ones. It made them vulnerable, or at least more fun to taunt. "It's fashioned from the face of a goat. If I can jus' get that, I'll be on my way. I'll pay. I got plenty of money."
Haste looked from Kale to Fitch. If those three weren't up to something, why Chuggie'd beat a cat.
"It's a purse. You put things in it." He held raised his boar tusk pipe. "Knickknacks and doodads and shit like that. You know, a purse. You know where I might find a thing like that?"
"What do you plan to do with this purse?" Haste wrote notes in a ledger without taking his eyes off Chuggie.
"Gonna destroy it," Chuggie said. "Damn thing's been nothing but trouble. Hey, do I smell sausage in here? I kinda missed breakfast, unless you count beer."
"And if I give you this purse, you'll leave Stagwater and never return?" Haste's chair squealed as his pushed back from his desk. He got to his feet with a grunt.
Non let out a low rumbling sound that sounded like an angry hive of bees.
Fitch backed away from Non. Another inch or two and his back would be up against the wall. From the look on his face, Fitch was either ready to puke or shit. Wondering which could be funnier, Chuggie hoped for both.
"Yep, I'll never return." Chuggie sucked on his pipe as he watched the weaselly preacher.
Haste strolled over to the window. He put his fingertips on the glass and looked out over the city. "I don't have your purse anymore."
Kale unfolded his arms and leaned against the edge of the desk.
Chuggie bit down on the pipe stem. "Then I suppose I'll just be staying right here in your fine town."
"I think not." Kale clenched his fist.
Haste turned away from the window and smiled. "I don't have the purse
here
. But you are welcome to go and get it. The purse was
stolen
along with several other artifacts."
"Stolen!" Kale blurted out. "Why wasn't I told about this?"
"You remember, Mr. Kale." Haste raised his eyebrows. "When all those relics and talismans were stolen. Terrible loss." Haste shook his head. "Terrible. According to our intelligence, the thieves stashed it in a graveyard north of Stagwater."
"Ah, yes, of course!" Kale exclaimed. A smile spread across his face. "The thieves took it and hid it in the graveyard."
"You are free to reclaim it, Mr. Losiat. Chuggie." Haste's smile looked like he'd slathered up his mouth with snake oil.
"North? Ha!" Chuggie pointed the pipe stem at Haste. "Just the other day I ran into some fellows who were trying to convince me to go North. Whatever you Stagwater folks got up there, you're sure anxious to get
me
to take a gander at it. A suspicious man might find this all… uh, suspicious."
"I assure you, Chuggie, the goat-faced purse is yours for the taking. We'd rather it be in your possession than in the hands of thieves. Isn't that right?" Haste looked from Kale to Fitch.
"Right," Kale barked.
"May those thieves rot in hell," Fitch said as he rubbed his lucky charm.
"But that's it. Once you have it, you leave Stagwater and never return. We'll regard any suspicious activity or double-dealing as conspiracy." Haste pointed an accusative finger at Chuggie. "I'll be watching. This story of yours doesn't sit well with me."
Chuggie nodded. "Same here." He lit his pipe.
"Tell him where to find the purse." Non's eyes grew bright.
Haste's head nodded in short, jiggly motions. "Kale, draw our new friend a map to his prize."
Chuggie puffed heavy on his boar tusk pipe. He sidled up to Kale and looked over his shoulder as he sketched.
Kale slashed an 'X' on the paper, then held it out to Chuggie.
"Better not be any wrong turns on that map." Chuggie grabbed the paper, but Kale didn't let go.
Leaning close, Kale whispered, "Tonight I'll dig a hole in the woods. I can't wait to bury you in it."
Chuggie yanked the map from Kale's hand and stomped to the door.
Rorid heard his son Drexel sniffling in the next room. The boy had barely left his bed since the torturgy, and Rorid had no intention of forcing the issue. He heard a pen scratching paper as Drexel sketched or wrote or whatever he did.
Rorid looked around the cramped and dirty apartment. He felt ashamed that his son had to live like this. True, he and his son lived much better than the residents of Carnietown, but that offered little comfort when he heard the upstairs neighbor screaming at her unconscious husband or the infant below crying in hunger at all hours.
"What're you writing here, sonny?"
Drexel didn't look up. "It's a poem, I guess."
"You guess?" Rorid sat on the bed next to his son. "Mind if I take a look?"
Drexel quickly closed his ledger. He stared at it for a quiet moment, then handed it to his father. "It's not good. It's stupid." He pulled a pillow over his head.
Rorid patted his son's shoulder and opened to the last entry.
Helpless agony bound.
I am naked and alone in the dark.
Awash in pain, blood aflame,
Monstrous men do monstrous things.
Nearby, I hear a woman cry.
Helpless agony.
Her sound is drowned by pain, she's gone far-far away.
Is she dead or just wishing?
Monstrous men do monstrous things to me and to her.
Helpless.
They, too, are broken. They, too, are afraid.
I forgive them and wish to die.
Help.
Rorid's hand shook as he closed the ledger and placed it on the bed next to his son. He wiped away a single tear. With a shaky voice, he said, "Boy… I'm sorry. I'm sorry my failure landed on you."
He wanted to fall on the floor and cry out for his son's forgiveness, but wasn't in his character. He stood to leave before the tears broke loose.
"I told you, you're not to blame, Dad," Drexel said with a soft voice.
"What if I was?" asked Rorid.
"Then I'd forgive you."
Rorid left, quietly closing Drexel's door behind him.
He couldn't raise his son in Stagwater, pension be damned. He could no longer bear breathing the same air as the men who did this to his son. He needed to talk to Priole.
Chuggie stood in front of a Carnietown shack, considering its yellow door. Might as well knock, he figured, and so he did, a bit harder than necessary.
From inside came a ruckus followed by cussing. A moment later, Faben swung the door open. She looked none too pleased.
"Oh hell, it's just you." Faben said. "Do you always pound doors down like you're the city guard conducting a raid?"
"I'm lookin' for Faben Brassline," Chuggie smiled. "I got some cosmetics to sell, and word around town is nobody needs makeup more than Faben does."
"Why don't you bring the comedy act inside?" She held the door open for him.
"What am I interrupting?" he asked.
"Nothing. I was just writing in my summoning manual." She closed the thick, leather-clad book sitting on her little table and righted a fallen chair. His knocking must have startled her out of her seat.
"I got my meeting," Chuggie told her. "A Steel Jack called Non came to the inn this morning and took me to meet Haste."
"That seems unlikely," she said. "I don't know where to begin with that. You really met him?"
"And the two pukes he had with him. I told them I'm after a goat-face purse. They told me it was up to the north, hidden by thieves in a graveyard."
"There's something up north, but I doubt it's thieves."
"I got suspicions about that myself. But I
do
believe they got that purse hidden up there. Or they will have by the time I get there."
"You think they told you the truth?" She gestured for him to sit.
"Yep, enough of it's true, at least. Non vouches for it." Chuggie took his seat with a groan of relief.
"Why are the Steel Jacks helping you?"
"Never met a Steel Jack that didn't try to sign me up." Chuggie spat on the floor. Realizing his error, he quick wiped it up with his sleeve. "When this Non character says he wants to help in any way he can, I know what that's all about."
"What
is
it all about? Never seen Steel Jacks act like that before."
Chuggie thought for a moment. He couldn't see the harm in telling her what he really was. He'd be gone soon, one way or another. "You got a glass of water?"
"Yep." Faben said, and a moment later a pitcher of water and a wooden cup sat upon the table.
"Gonna show you some
real
conjury," said Chuggie as he poured the cup full.
He held the cup out so Faben could look inside, then he dumped it out on the table. Chuggie held a hand over the puddle, and it evaporated immediately. He filled the cup again and poured it slowly onto his hand, but no water spilled. He absorbed every last drop as quickly as he poured. He lifted the pitcher to his lips and dumped the remaining water down his throat. Only a small trickle escaped from the corner of his mouth.
"What is that supposed to be? The Steel Jacks want to enlist you because you can do parlor tricks with water?"
Chuggie looked around the room. Under the window, Faben had fresh tobacco leaves drying on a tray. He got the tray and held up the first leaf. Faben watched as the leaf withered in Chuggie's hand. He repeated the demonstration until all the tobacco was dry enough to smoke.
"There," he said, "your tobacco is ready for puffin'."
Faben raised a brow and shook her head slowly. "I don't understand, Chuggie. What did you do?"
He cleared his throat. "I'm walkin' Drought. Born when the world was young, and humanity had yet to be dreamt of. And I'm always,
always
thirsty."
He produced his boar tusk pipe and stuffed some of Faben's tobacco into it. She struck a match and lit if for him before setting her own pipe on the table.
"Long time ago… I forget the name of the town, don't suppose it matters much now, Frogwood or Dogtree, or some shit along those lines. Anyway, this town sat at the bottom of a mountain on the shore of this big, deep lake." Chuggie puffed away.
"Yeah, they didn't take kindly to me over there in Frogwood. They up an' chained my ass to a big damn rock, then they dropped me in the middle of the lake. I sunk down, down, down, and it was
painful
cold down there on the bottom." With one hand, Chuggie held the pipe to his mouth, and with the other he gestured wildly to add emphasis to the story.