Doppelganger

by Logan Jacobs

  “Abraham? Was that Beardy-with-the-Knife?” Willobee interrupted with a glance at his blackened remains.

  “Yes, yes it was. Remember how he wanted to carve you up and see if he could find your venom sac and take it with him? Remember how he said it’d be real useful to have something like that to squirt people with?”

  “Of course I remember. That’s the kind of folks she comes from, Master,” Willobee informed me, as if I hadn’t been at the scene of the robbery myself.

  “And then,” Lizzy continued triumphantly, “remember how I said, ‘He’s such a funny wee thing, I’m sure he didn’t mean to slime them, just happened when you scared him, like one of them jelly-bobs with all the arms. And you won’t be able to cut anything out of his tummy anyhow without getting buckets of slime on yourself?’”

  “Insults me on top of it all she does,” Willobee muttered. He tugged at my sleeve. “Master, can we go now?”

  “So reeaally,” Lizzy concluded, “it’s not him, it’s me as what you owe ten years’ of service to. For saving your life and all that.”

  Willobee opened his mouth, but no sound came out. His glowworm-green eyes darted back and forth.

  “Of course,” the she-wolf continued sweetly, “I am most willin’ to cede my claim in Vander’s favor. Him being the far worthier master and me not caring to be followed around by a puking gnome for ten years and all that. But seeing as I am such a generous soul don’t you think you could afford me the courtesy of at least a ride to the next town?”

  Willobee gazed up at me anxiously. I was afraid that I knew what was coming next.

  “Er, Master, I was thinking mayhap as an act of charity and all…” He suggested guiltily as his tufted ears twitched. “This brigand-- I mean woman is a real pretty little dumpling,” he pointed out by way of encouragement as I glared at him. “Needs a bath or three and a new dress to be sure, but you can see she’d fill one out real nicely.”

  I was pretty sure at this point that I would be better off without both of them, but I roared in unison out of both mouths, “All right! Fucking hell.” They both practically jumped out of their skins, unsure which of me to look at. “But it isn’t my fault if you both get murdered by Thorvinians,” I continued, “and I will not shed any tears about it. Or make any extraordinary efforts to prevent it. Got it?”

  “Whatever you say, boss,” Willobee said cheerfully.

  “It is such a rare treat to find an honest man,” Lizzy cooed.

  I sighed and stomped over to the carriage. The band of vagabonds had pushed it over, but it had landed in soft mud and actually didn’t look as though it had been damaged. So I pried it out of the mud and set it upright again. It was even heavier than the statue, but between the two of me it was perfectly doable.

  Once I was done, I looked back over at my two new companions and realized they were both gaping at me.

  “Well, hurry up and make yourselves useful,” I grumbled. “They cut the ponies’ harness. Tie it back together.”

  They scurried to obey. In the meantime, I unloaded all my luggage from my backs and transferred it into the trunk of the carriage. I only kept the weapons and the waterskins on me, and the gems in my pouches. Something told me that I shouldn’t let Willobee find out about those.

  Soon, we were ready to go. I secured the trunk and went over to the driver’s bench. Willobee and Lizzy were already sitting there, and the gnome held the ponies’ reins in his hands.

  “That one,” he was telling Lizzy, “is Luna, and the one on the right is Chrysanthemum.”

  “Hop in the carriage,” I said.

  “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” he said reluctantly. “You don’t know Luna and Chrysanthemum the way I do.”

  “I will figure out how to steer them,” I said. “Get in the carriage. Both of you.”

  “Whatever you say, Master. Come on then, my lady,” Willobee said as he reached for Lizzy’s hand.

  She glanced over with a grimace and did not give it to him. “Will one of you sit with me, Vander?” she asked.

  “Sure,” I agreed. I guessed that way I could make sure the two of them weren’t plotting anything stupid behind my back, and maybe I could also take a nap at some point. I put a hand behind each of their backs to guide them, not too roughly but not too gently either, into the carriage while I mounted the driver’s seat.

  Luna and Chrysanthemum turned out to be very cooperative beasts. Steering them wasn’t any trouble at all. Besides, they already knew to follow the road, so I really didn’t need to do much of anything. They did not seem to have been upset by the earlier turmoil with the vagrants, either. I guessed that traveling with Willobee had probably gotten them accustomed to the unexpected. Or maybe their pretty pony heads were just too empty to be bothered about any of it.

  Willobee and Lizzy were another matter altogether.

  It was clear enough what sorts of activities she had been getting up to before I met her, but Willobee proved rather cagy and evasive when I asked for details about his activities and where he had been headed before Lizzy’s band attacked him. He never once outright refused to answer a question. He just deflected with remarks like, “I know that gnomish ways can be a bit difficult for humans to puzzle out. We are a very subtle and complicated people. Sometimes our reasons for doing a thing can be misinterpreted by anyone who is not a gnome. It’s always tragic when a promising friendship gets ruined because of a pointless misunderstanding.” Or he would say, “Sometimes Luna gets it into her head that it’s time for us to head north, and Chrysanthemum wants to go south, and it requires all my substantial powers of negotiation, compromise, and charm to coax my dear girls into following the migratory path of the eidelbird until the winds turn more propitious.” Or he would say, “The only reason I was going where I was going when I was going there by way of the particular route that I was using by means of this here particular conveyance is so all the gods, but Qaar’endoth above all of course, could bring about the miracle of delivering me into the path of the most beauteous damsel and the strongest and noblest and worthiest master that they ever did conceive on this earth.”

  It was a pointless conversation, really.

  Soon I gave it up and let the two of them turn to trading songs. Lizzy’s vagrant troupe had had some songs in their repertoire with lyrics to make a whore blush pink. She hollered them out gleefully, tail wagging, while she scrutinized me for any signs of pinkness. It cost me a great deal of effort to keep my face as solemn as if I were listening to a sermon being preached, but that is nonetheless exactly what I did.

  As for Willobee, he explained that gnomish songs were mostly instrumental, and seeing as he did not have the proper instruments on hand, seeing as they were not available for purchase anywhere except in the caverns of the most traditional and reclusive Clans during the markets they held on every eighty-seventh full moon, it was absolutely impossible for him to render any crumb of justice to the musical expression of the lofty sense of yearning that defined the gnomish soul.

  With that, he launched into a rollicking ballad having something to do with a gnomish hero and his quest to accumulate more gold than the local dragon. This rendition involved floor-stamping, wall-banging, knee-slapping (first his own then Lizzy’s, until she slapped back), unearthly ululating, bloodcurdling yipping, guttural rhythms from deep in his throat, rapid crescendos of tongue clicking, and all manner of other sounds layered together that filled the inside of the carriage with an entire symphony.

  Even my self that was in the driver’s seat became so absorbed in Willobee’s ballad through my other set of ears that I hardly noticed night encroaching until it was already upon us. Just as I began to worry about finding shelter, we came upon a walled town, and I pulled Willobee’s carriage up to the gate.

  “Well, here we are,” I announced to my companions inside the carriage.

  Willobee hopped out.

  “What are you doing?” I asked as my other self outside pounded on the gate. Lizzy tr
ied to get out of the carriage too. I blocked her. If it were my town, I’d consider both her and Willobee very suspicious-looking personages. I’d consider myself a little spooky too, if I weren’t familiar with the order of Qaar’endoth, and I were both visible.

  The gatekeeper peered down over the wall. “Who goes there?” He called.

  I was about to state my human name, but Willobee interrupted me. “I am Mister Mickleson, from the town thataways,” he said in a nasally accent. He pointed in what, as far as I knew, was a completely random direction. “I been travelin’ some days now and I have me an awful hankering for some of your finest gnosh and strongest slosh to warm me belly.”

  “And what is your business on the road?” The gatekeeper demanded.

  “I am a’goin’ to visit me mum, who is awfully ill and perhaps on her deathbed, can’t puke up a drop poor soul no matter how far you sticks the finger down her throat.”

  The gatekeeper wrinkled his nose with obvious distaste. “And who is that?” he asked as he pointed at me.

  “Oh, this is my human boy. Took him in when he was a wee one left on the doorstep in a basket. And a very poorly woven one at that! Right broke me heart, it did. And he does everything for me now in me old age, couldn’t do without him I surely couldn’t.”

  I made a cursory attempt to look like a forlorn orphan. Then I wondered if I still would look like that, twenty years on in the care of a gnome. Then it occurred to me that I really was an orphan of sorts as of early this morning and wondered if I did look forlorn already without being able to help it.

  “Anyone else in the carriage?” the gatekeeper asked.

  “Yes there is, his poor sweet sister. Her they tried to give to the nearest temple, but the temple weren’t acceptin’ no more babes at that time, so it fell to me once again, as the wealthiest gnome thereabouts, to be the one to dig deep in my pockets and open up my hearth and my home to another lost little lamb. And there be one more, my other boy is a mute, poor lad, and has to be spoon-fed--”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” the gatekeeper grumbled. He turned to someone over his shoulder and hollered, “Let them in!” before slipping out of sight.

  The gate creaked up, Willobee and I hopped up on the driver’s bench, and Luna and Chrysanthemum trotted right on in. I wondered how many times they’d heard this spiel before.

  Willobee drove us straight to the town’s only inn, so I guessed that maybe he had at least been telling the truth about the “gnosh and slosh” part.

  All four of us got down from the carriage, but before we went into the tavern, I turned to Willobee. “Two things you should know. First off, Qaar’endoth does not look favorably upon telling falsehoods.”

  “What if they’re falsehoods told in service of an honorable mission?” Willobee asked. He bowed so low to me that his ostrich feather touched the ground. “My master’s mission.”

  “Just… well… try to keep the falsehoods to a minimum, got it?” I said. “Secondly. Let me be very clear on this one. No one in this party is going to be spoon-feeding anyone else.”

  “Aw, well I’ll let you fill my mouth up any time you want to,” Lizzy said as she nuzzled up to me. “I’d enjoy that. I know you’d enjoy it too.”

  I both pushed my way past them and into the inn.

  It was chaos in there. Most of the people in there looked grubby and ill-mannered from the first glance. I could spy dozens of violations of Qaar’endoth’s tenets for righteous living just from the doorway. I wondered if I should try to turn around and find some place a little more respectable to eat and sleep for the night.

  “Oh, my,” Lizzy said from at my elbow. “What a cozy and prosperous establishment.”

  I noticed a steaming meat pie and a platter of crispy fish at a table nearby that smelled all sorts of delicious. My stomach growled, so I pointed and asked Willobee under my breath, “How do I, er, bribe the innkeeper for some of that? I’m not really sure what the…protocol is in a place like this.”

  He stared at me and then said cheerfully, “Well don’t you worry, my boy, Willobee of Clan Benniwumporgan is here to show you.”

  He ushered me and Lizzy along to an empty table, of which there were not many, and called the nearest barmaid over.

  “What’s on the menu tonight, sweetheart?” he asked her.

  “Kidney pie, flounder, black pudding, and eel stew,” she replied. I started to feel a lot less hungry. The temple cooks would have been ashamed to serve us anything like that.

  “Very well, we’ll take two of each,” Willobee said.

  “Three,” Lizzy corrected him, licking her lips.

  “And, four mugs of honey mead,” Willobee added. “Top ‘em up, darling. The road is long and dusty.”

  The barmaid blinked at all of us. “Er. So that’ll be three kidney pies, three flounders, three black puddings, and three eel stews? And four mugs?”

  “Yes,” I said quickly before either of my companions could add further to the order. “It’s, ah, very hospitable of you to offer. We appreciate it very much.”

  “And, er, which of you gentlemen will be paying tonight?” She asked brazenly.

  Both Willobee and Lizzy immediately looked at both of me.

  “I--what?” I spluttered. I wouldn’t have expected any different from Lizzy, but Willobee had that fancy carriage and those fat ponies, and the clothes he was decked out in weren’t exactly standard novice issue, either. “I don’t even like kidney pie. Or black pudding. Or--”

  “Those filthy vagrants had already pawed through all my things by the time you got there,” he interrupted. “And when they ran away from you, they took everything of value with them.” He gave me such a woebegone face that I sighed and pulled out a pouch of gems.

  Just when I was wondering how to go about privately asking him how many the barmaid would be expecting, he snatched the entire pouch from me.

  He peeked inside, and his eyes literally glowed. Both his and Lizzy’s were green, but hers were the green of spring grass, and his were the kind of supernatural green of something that was very bad news to encounter in the dark.

  He plucked out a small ruby and placed it in the barmaid’s palm. I think she said, “Oh my,” and flushed, in what could best be described as the exact human equivalent of Willobee’s reaction. I didn’t understand either of them. I knew the gems were pretty, but lots of things were pretty. Seashells were pretty. Flowers were pretty. And you couldn’t use any of those things for anything much besides prettying up other things. So what was the big deal?

  “We will be expecting your very best service tonight, miss,” Willobee said to the barmaid.

  “Of course, my lord,” she cooed. Then she dropped a clumsy curtsy and scurried off.

  “Willobee, where is the rest of my pouch?” I asked him.

  He wasn’t holding it anymore. It had vanished. Somewhere, I suspected, into the folds of his clothing. Or worse. I had heard that gnomes had a nasty habit of swallowing things they wanted to keep for themselves until they chose to expel them out one end or the other. He blinked at me innocently.

  “You, my friend,” Willobee replied, “do not know the first thing about wealth. Tonight, I am going to teach you of its many splendiferous joys.”

  “That did not belong to you, you thieving little gnome,” Lizzy cried. I was thinking the same thing myself, but I also thought it was a little presumptuous of her to start calling other people thieves willy-nilly, all things considered.

  So I said, “Calm down, both of you. Willobee, you will be my treasurer, just for tonight. But you will not give anyone any more bribes without asking me first.”

  “Why HIM?!” Lizzy shrieked. “I want to be your treasurer too.”

  I sighed and considered demanding the pouch back from Willobee, but at this point I was afraid of where he might produce it from. “You are both in charge of the gems then. Willobee, you must share them with Lizzy.” I was not about to tell them of the existence of the second pouch.

&nb
sp; The barmaid appeared at our table again and started depositing heavily laden plates. A second barmaid also arrived to place mugs in front of each of us and pour them full. They both smiled and winked and swished their hips around a lot. Neither of them were ugly, but when I noticed their flirtatious behavior and considered where it might lead, I realized that I was a lot more interested in finding out exactly how much of Lizzy was wolfish, under those silk tatters of hers.

  When the barmaids left I asked Willobee, “How could they have cooked everything that fast? That’s not possible.”

  “They didn’t cook it on our say-so, so they must have already cooked most of these things for some other folks who ordered first,” he explained. At least, I think that is what he said, but the mouthful of slimy eel tails flapping out of his mouth made it difficult for him to enunciate properly. “But those other folks did not offer them a ruby.”

  “You mean this food doesn’t belong to us?” I asked.

  “It does now, darling, it does now,” Lizzy assured the one of me that was closest to her. She scratched gently behind one of my ears with her claw. Then she attacked the food. She was an attractive girl, no doubt about it, but her table manners were a little alarming and reminded me of the fates of Lil and Betty.

  “Lizzy?” I asked her as I took a sip of honey mead. “Er, you know back when we met each other on the road, and that fellow that was traveling with your group mentioned those other girls that used to travel with you too?”

  “What other--oh! Lil and Betty. Yes. What about them?” she asked.

  “Another round, another round!” Willobee shouted as he raised his mug high in the air. As high as he could reach, that is, which was not very high. I saw that his lavender beard was sopping wet. He held out another of my gems, and this time three barmaids surrounded him.

  I decided to focus both selves on Lizzy. “Well, I was just wondering if the reason that… what happened to them, happened, is that they, you know, did something to upset you,” I said as casually as possible. I gulped down some more honey mead in an attempt to work up the courage to sample some of the inn’s dishes. “Or if it was just that you were… well, hungry.”