Authors: David Lee Stone
There followed a few seconds of expectant silence.
“Why?” asked Modeset, voice quavering. “Where is it?”
“Roughly? About twenty-five feet off the ground. So stay still.”
A brief scuffling ensued and Modeset suspected that he heard a rope being winched. There was a sharp creak, and suddenly he felt the crate move in the air. After a time, it swung left, leaving him with an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach. Then, slowly at first, it began to descend.
“Okay,” said the voice. “Let’s get this off.”
The head of a crowbar bit into the wood and the lid of the crate was wrenched clear. Modeset pulled himself up and looked out at a dark shadow. His eyes traveled from shiny black boots to a thatch of jet-black hair that crowned the shadow in all its menacing glory. Recognition dawned very gradually.
“It’s you! Why are you dressed like that?”
The loftwing looked down at himself. “I always dress like this,” he said. “It’s part and parcel of the job. If I don’t dress like this, people won’t recognize me. Now, may we dispense with the pleasantries?”
Modeset frowned and nodded, before a fist like bunched steel sent him careering back into the crate.
Obegarde stepped forward and pulled the duke up again. “I thought I told you to keep your nose out of this,” he snapped, supporting Modeset by the base of his chin. “What is it with dukes? I’ve known a few, and you’re all the same. You go gallivanting around on the merest whim, sticking your noses into every kind of trouble, as if the world owes you a favor. Well, if I remember rightly, Dullitch certainly doesn’t owe you any favors.”
Modeset wriggled free and shook his head. “It’s not what you think,” he said, still in shock and spitting blood with every second word. “I got here by accident.”
“A likely story.”
“No, it’s true. This afternoon, after I got arrested—”
“You?” Obegarde’s half-smile came as a definite relief. “How did you get arrested? Parked your carriage over a trade route or something?”
“I punched a guard,” Modeset managed.
“Really? I’m impressed, but that still doesn’t explain what you’re doing here. … ”
“Yes, well—”
“And you’ve only got five minutes until I lose my famous kind streak.”
The duke tried to explain.
Obegarde pretended to listen.
“Well,” Obegarde said, when Modeset had brought his tale up to date. “Now you’re here, you might as well see what it is our friend doesn’t want me to find.”
He took a step back and gestured behind him.
Modeset squinted into the darkness and shrugged. “I don’t see anything.”
“You sure?”
“Of course I’m sure! There’s nothing there! I know because that’s the way I came in. If there was a crate standing on its own, I’d have seen it.”
Obegarde’s grin stayed right where it was. “It’s not a crate,” he said. “Look again.”
Modeset stared hard at the wall of the warehouse, except that it wasn’t the wall of the warehouse. It was the back of something. Something huge.
“Ye gods!” he cried. “What is it? It’s enormous.”
“You’re telling me,” said Obegarde, scratching his granite forehead.
“I must have walked right past it!”
“So did I, three times. For some reason, you just can’t comprehend it at first.”
“But what in the name of the gods is it?”
The loftwing shrugged. “A machine of some kind,” he said. “It’s camouflaged to blend in with the warehouse wall. The Harbor Master’s an elf, so there’s no way he doesn’t know about it … which leads me to believe that the owner of this monster holds sway over at least one high-ranking member of the Mariners’ Consortium.”
“It’s glowing,” remarked Modeset, taking a step back.
“Yeah, it does seem to do that, on and off,” said Obegarde. “At a guess, I’d say it’s part magic and part machine. There’s a lens on the top, a lever on the side, and tubes all over the pace. It’s got me puzzled, I don’t mind admitting.”
Modeset narrowed his eyes. “I don’t like the look of it,” he said. “There’s something inherently destructive in the shape. Who do you think owns it? Your rock-thrower?”
“Could be, could be,” said Obegarde, nodding. “He visits it every night. That’s what first led me here. And he always brings a book. Does nothing with it, mind. It’s almost as if he just brings the thing so he doesn’t have to leave it at home.”
Modeset nodded. “Odd. Well, um, how am I going to get out of here, exactly?”
The investigator grinned. “You’re not,” he said. “You’re gonna come with me while I break into the Harbor Master’s office. I need to see if there’s any record of this monstrosity in the holding log.”
The first kick wrenched the cottage door from its hinges, the second sent it crashing to the floor.
“I thought you said the dockers were watching this place,” Modeset whispered.
“They are,” said Obegarde with a shrug. “That’s why I knew we wouldn’t have any trouble getting in.”
“I’m sorry I—”
“Dockers generally aren’t too bright. They’re big and slabby, but not too quick on the brain trigger.”
The Dullitch Harbor Master’s office was a bit of a dump; Modeset couldn’t see for anchors.
“Here we are,” called Obegarde, clambering over the desk to study the heavy logbook. “Hmm, recent entries … Aha!”
Modeset kept watch, peering around the fractured door like a nervous whippet.
“Interesting,” said the investigator, scratching his concrete chin.
“What? What is it?”
“Well, you need two signatures to legally deposit a crate, especially when it’s unlikely to leave the city. The machine is logged in as Herman’s Stare. There’s a brief disclosure note signed by one Augustus Vrunak, address in upper Dullitch. The other signature’s too blurry to make out, but the address is definitely Karuim’s.”
“The church next to the palace?” Modeset asked.
“Hmm … my last stop, I think. Night’s almost over.” He looked up and saw Modeset backing out the door. “Hey! Where’re you going?”
“Home!” said the duke. “And it’s no use you trying to stop me; I’m tired and I want to get some sleep.”
Obegarde rolled his eyes. “You’re joking, right?” he said. “Besides, I need some help here; you might as well just come with me. We’ll both head back to the Steeplejack when we’re done.”
“No!” Modeset shook his head. “I’m off
now
. None of this has anything to do with me.
You
can go wherever you like.”
“Okay, okay” said the investigator. “But you
are
involved now, whether you like it or not, so can you at least do me a favor?”
The duke sighed. “That depends; what kind of favor? Does it involve me dressing up, spending time in a confined space, or becoming embroiled in a street fight?”
“No.” Obegarde shook his head and passed him a small square of paper torn from the logbook. “Check out this Vrunak fellow for me.”
“What, now?”
“Not necessarily. Get your precious sleep; you can go tomorrow morning. Here’s the address.”
Modeset was about to decline, but when he saw the look on the loftwing’s rugged face, he thought better of it.
T
HE ROTTING FERRET WAS
bustling with activity. Chas Firebrand’s decision to sell the subterranean inn to a family of goblins from Phlegm had seemed a disastrous one on paper, but Frowd Fjin was certainly a greenskin with talent. In a little over five years, he’d turned the place from an oft-avoided fighting pit into a respected nightclub, complete with orc bouncers, elf waitresses, and even a troglodyte cabaret group.
Jimmy was miserable; he’d been waiting at the inn for hours, and there was not even the merest hint of a sign of Grab Dafisful. Worse still, he knew that the barrowbird was waiting outside and, no matter how many ingenious ways he might invent to leave the Ferret, his feathered curse would eventually catch up with him.
“So, let me get this straight,” he muttered to the gnome, who’d taken a seat beside him and promptly ordered a round. “You’re saying that you can smash the green bottle above the bar, third along on the right, without anyone knowing it was you? Get out.”
Mixer waved him into silence. “A crown says I can, a drink says I can’t.” Done.
The gnome then quickly produced a small but intricate-looking crossbow, then lowered his head and fired off a shot, thrusting the weapon under the table before the merest hint of breaking glass.
“Oi!” bellowed the landlord, a swarthy half-ogre. “Who did that? We’ll have no such sport in ’ere!”
Jimmy turned, mouth still agape, to stare at the gnome. “Drinks’re on me, then,” he said. “Incredible. Just incredible.”
Mixer shrugged. “You think that’s impressive?” he started, drawing closer to the gravedigger and lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I can make the bells of Karuim’s toll without even touching them.”
“Rubbish; now that
is
impossible.”
“Ha! That’s what Grab said this morning. He’s laughing on the other side of his face now!”
“Grab? Not Grab Dafisful, the thief?”
“Yeah, the very same. Why, d’you know him?”
“Know him? He … er … he owes me fifty crowns!”
Mixer’s tiny eyes lit up. “Oh, it’s you he owes!” The gnome tapped at his shiny brass teeth. “He said as much; just between us, he’s hiding up on the roof of Karuim’s Church. I met him this morning when I was doing some routine maintenance work for the council. In fact, I’m due back there in a minute. D’you fancy joining me? You can have a word with Grab and then we can see who takes this incredibly fine piece of weaponry home. What d’you say?”
Jimmy, ever the sucker for a gamble, took the proffered weapon in his hands and looked it over. It was made of Chakiwood, the poisoned bark of the Red Lime Tree. Rare; expensive. It had to be worth at least a hundred crowns.
“You’re on,” Jimmy agreed, passing the crossbow back to the gnome with a nod.
“We’ll call it a deal, then,” said Mixer, staring dispassionately at the barmaid as she delivered their long-awaited tankards of ale. “Unless you want to start small; I can’t imagine a fellow like you has too much gold.”
Jimmy tried to keep a straight face, which was difficult with a mug like his. One thing everyone in the city knew about Jimmy, apart from the fact that he used to be a thief and was reasonably good with a shovel, was his marked annoyance at anyone suggesting that he was penniless.
He raised one eyebrow and tried to focus on the Rotting Ferret’s rowdy clientele.
“I’m doing okay, as a matter of fact,” he lied. “So let’s talk turkey; when do you want me to witness your terrible failure at the church? Now?”
A silence settled over the table.
“Well, there’s no time like the present. Isn’t that what they say?”
“Sure, okay. Give me a minute to pay the piper; I’ll be right back.”
“Awesome,” Mixer said, with an evil grin. “Hurry up, though. I can’t hang around all night.”
Jimmy nodded, jumped out of his chair, and dashed through the bar. Once safely beyond the grimy door that led to the Ferret’s condemned latrines, he hurtled along a dank passage, up three flights of half-crumbled steps, past a dingy back door, over the wall in the Ferret’s beer garden, down the alley that clung to its western side, and out into the street that contained the inn’s decrepit entrance doors.
The barrowbird spotted him immediately, alighting from its perch on a first-floor windowsill of a bakery across the road.
“Anything?” it squawked. “I haven’t seen him go in.”
“He’s not there,” Jimmy hurriedly confided. “But I’m talking to a gnome who’s gonna take me to him.”
“A gnome?”
“Yeah.”
“What, just like that?”
“Yes!”
“No questions asked?”
“Yes, I mean, no!”
“Does the gnome know anything about the group that hired him?”
“I don’t know!”
“Can’t you find out?”
“NO!”
“Why not?”
“Look, it’s simple. He thinks he owes me money!”
“Who, the gnome?”
“Grab, damn it! Why don’t you listen?”
“I am listening; why can’t you speak properly?”
“Don’t start with me! I’m doing you a favor here.”
“Ha! You dug your own grave, boy. Now
you
listen. Why don’t you follow this dwarf—”
“It’s a gnome, and I’m going to!”
“Right, and then I’ll follow the pair of you.”
“D’you think so? Gad, and I thought I was sharp. Can I go now?”
“No, wait! Just hang on a minute; how did you get out?”
“I lied; told him I was going to the latrine.”
“Right. So hadn’t you better get back inside then, so we can follow him when he leaves?”
“Yes! That’s what I’m saying!”
“Well, don’t let me keep you.”
Jimmy rolled his eyes. Then he raced back down the alley, leaped over the wall, shouldered past the door, fell down the stairs, hurtled along the corridor, bumped his way through the bar, landed on the three-legged stool opposite the gnome, and promptly fell off it.
Mixer swallowed a gulp of ale. “That was quick,” he said.
N
IGHT YAWNED. …
When Modeset returned to the Steeplejack Inn, he found Flicka waiting for him.
The duke had always had a curious relationship with the girl, partly because he found her very beautiful, but mostly because he didn’t feel at all comfortable with young women. Any women, come to that.
However, observing her now as she stood in the entrance hall of the inn, with her hair plastered to her face and her ragged clothes heavy with rain, Modeset was beginning to understand what all the fuss was about. The girl was healthy, that much was certain.
“Well, I say, what a surprise,” he began. “I was very, very worried about you, Flicka. In fact, I was just this minute coming to get you out of the dungeons and, whoosh-adacadava, here you are. Most impressive.”
Flicka raised a thick eyebrow. Her brown eyes glistened. “On your way to getting us out?” she said. “How thoughtful, milord. Odd, though, I seem to recall the palace being in the opposite direction.”
Modeset nodded quickly. “Yes, well of course it
is
,” he said. “But I was planning to get some shut-eye first, you know, conserve a bit of energy.”