by Peter David
When I finally reached Millfields, which was less than a night’s journey from Bowerstone Industrial, I holed up in a small, ramshackle inn called the Lion’s Pride. There didn’t seem much to be prideful about, but I suppose if they’d called the place the Piece of Crap Inn, they wouldn’t get much business.
Not surprisingly, the place wasn’t exactly filled to the gills although there were enough people around, I suppose. I dropped a few coins and got a stable for Clash, and for myself a lousy room in the back that came with a rather uninspiring meal of overcooked steak and underbrewed beer. Honestly, I think Clash’s accommodations might have been the superior ones. But at that point I had enough on my mind not to care overmuch about either.
The gnome, for his part, opted to stay outside. This wasn’t all that much of a concession on his part. He claimed that anytime he had the opportunity to steer clear of human beings, that was fine with him. I was dubious about the claim. For someone who despised humans, he certainly seemed drawn to us an inordinate amount of the time.
Retiring to my room, I flopped down on the lumpy mattress, no closer to a resolution of what I was going to do than I had been earlier. I was going around and around in my own head, trying to determine the best way to approach the situation. At that point, the only thing I could come up with was the idea of stalling. It was the one loophole I had. It wasn’t as if Reaver had set me a deadline. I couldn’t take forever to carry out the task he’d given me, but there wasn’t a ticking clock that was forcing me to act in a hasty fashion.
“Okay,” I said slowly to myself. “Okay . . . this might be the beginning of a plan. If I just take my sweet time, don’t hurry too much, then maybe . . .”
“Have I mentioned you’re an idiot?”
I sat up violently in the darkness of the room and nearly banged my head on a narrow shelf projecting just above the bed. Right across from me, crouched in the corner, was the shadowy outline of the gnome.
“What in the names of the gods are you doing here? How did you get in?”
“Loose board in the closet. This place is held together with manure and tape. And you’re still an idiot.”
“Is that why you came in here?” I said, flopping back down on the bed. “To throw more useless insults at me?”
“You could ask me why I said you’re an idiot.”
I was utterly not in the mood for games, but I knew that saying that would only encourage him. With the heavy sigh of one endlessly put upon, I said, “Fine. Why am I an idiot?”
“Because you don’t even know that someone is spying on you.”
Having been startled awake, I had been in the process of drifting back to sleep, but that snapped me to full attention. “What? What are you talking about?”
“There’s a man lurking about under a tree directly outside your window.” He indicated the small window through which a few beams of moonlight were filtering. “Can’t say what his intentions are, but I’m reasonably sure he’s not out there because he’s got your health in mind.”
My first impulse was to look out the window, but that would have made me exactly the idiot the gnome was accusing me of being. If I sat up and peered out the window, he’d know I’d spotted him.
The window was wide open, allowing the night air to filter in. “A ll right,” I said, my mind racing. “Here’s what I need you to do.”
“Does it involve violence?”
“It could.”
“I’m in.”
Somehow, I wasn’t surprised. “All right, then. All I need you to do is go out the way you came in, get around to where he’s standing while staying out of sight, and find some means to distract him. Animal noises, shouts . . .”
“Insults?”
“That would probably be the way to go,” I admitted. “Insult him to your heart’s content. As soon as I hear that he’s otherwise engaged, I’ll do the rest.”
“Fine.”
Considering who and what the gnome was, that had actually gone remarkably smoothly.
I had not even bothered to remove anything save my boots when I flopped down on the bed. In dumps like that, it was always preferable to keep as many of your possessions upon your person as you could, since you never knew who was going to try to relieve you of them, or when. Kneeling in the darkness, I reached around, found the boots, and pulled them on. Then I crouched, waiting. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was waiting for, but I suspected I’d know it when I heard it. Probably a string of shouted insults, followed by frustrated curses from whoever had decided to take up post outside my window.
Turned out I was wrong.
The next thing I knew, as I crouched in the darkness, there was a loud crashing and a howl of alarm, followed by a demented chortle of laughter that I could only think was from the gnome.
That was a signal if I’d ever heard one.
I leaped out the window, my pistol at the ready, unsure of what I was going to see, and yet somehow unsurprised by what I did see.
There was a large, well-built man in a heavy cloak lying on the ground, struggling. The gnome had him pinned, with his long arms wrapped around the man. One was under his chest, the other was right at his head. “I decided insults were getting old and opted for the direct approach. All I need to do,” said the homicidal gnome, “is give it one good twist. He’ll just have enough time to hear the snapping of his own neck before he dies. It’ll be sharp, like a twig breaking.” He looked up at me with obvious eagerness. “Now?”
I wasn’t certain if the gnome was playing or not. There’s an old interrogation process called good soldier, bad soldier, in which one soldier comes across to a prisoner like he’s his best friend while the other is borderline insane. To save himself from the latter, the prisoner will tell the former anything he wants to know. Usually, though, such tactics are carefully worked out between the two soldiers. In this case, for all I knew, the gnome was fully prepared to kill the man with his bare hands, having absolutely no interest in who he was or his purpose.
“Not yet,” I said, keeping my voice level and calm, which was no easy trick, I can assure you. The man on the ground was struggling fiercely, and I spoke cautiously to him. “I would stop thrashing around if I were you. You have no idea just how strong my partner is. He could easily tear your head off while adjusting his grip.”
The man immediately stopped struggling. The gnome looked up at me, and I saw there was utter astonishment in his face. He mouthed the word Partner?
I shrugged. It had seemed as reasonable a description as any.
“Much better,” I said, kneeling next to him. “Now: Tell me why you were spying on me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was minding my own business.” He had some sort of thick accent I couldn’t quite place.
I appeared to consider this for a moment. Then I said, “Okay. That was the ‘B’ answer. Now you’re going to give me the ‘A’ answer. And if you don’t, the bad news is that my partner here”—and the gnome actually looked pleased at the word—“is going to bite off one of your ears. The good news is, you get to choose which one.”
“No he doesn’t,” the gnome said curtly. “It’ll be the left ear. I’ve had my fill of right ones this year.”
“Oh, all right,” I said, as if making a huge concession. The gnome was certainly getting into the spirit of terrifying the man. Either that, or he really had been biting off people’s right ears in days past. It was hard to be sure.
Even in the relatively dim light that was being permitted to reach us through the clouds filtering past the moon, I could see that all the blood was draining from the man’s face.
“So—again—tell me why you were spying on me.”
The gnome leaned over, his mouth hovering over the man’s left ear. I still wasn’t sure if gnomes breathed, but if they did, then the fellow was getting a serious earful of hot gnome breath.
Apparently, it was more than enough to sway him.
“Reaver!” he blurted out, almos
t involuntarily.
“Ahhh, there it is.” The man’s accent suddenly snapped into focus for me. It was evocative of the pirates of the north, with whom I had had a brush or two in my youth and from whose stock Reaver was rumored to have come. Certainly, Reaver, in the course of his subsequent education and path toward commerce, would have left all such hints of his origins behind him, but this man wasn’t nearly so far removed. “And why are you spying upon me on Reaver’s behalf?”
“Because he told me to.”
“Oh, this one’s a genius, he is,” said the gnome, and I couldn’t exactly say that he was incorrect.
“And did he tell you why, exactly, you’re supposed to be spying on me?”
The man hesitated. The gnome promptly reached down and pinched the left ear so roughly that the man shrieked, doubtless thinking that the gnome was sinking his teeth into it. “He said I had to watch to make sure you killed some girl! Peg!”
“Page?”
“Right! Her! Will you get it off me?”
“It? Oh . . . you mean him. No, I actually rather like where he is at the moment. So: Tell me everything.”
“All right! I was born in—”
“Not that much everything. Just everything related to your assignment.”
The words couldn’t come tumbling out of him fast enough. Apparently, Reaver had a fairly comprehensive spy network whose members kept in touch with each other through a complex series of both runners carrying messages and ravens for longer distances. Apparently, even before we had left his manor, Reaver was in the process of putting word out through his grapevine.
I was being monitored, and I hadn’t even been aware of it. Suddenly, the entirety of our trip up to this point was run back through my head with a new vision of it. Casual passersby, beggars who had nodded and tipped their hats, holy men, young girls with flirtatious eyes . . . we had encountered all of them and more in our trip thus far. I had thought nothing of any of the casual, passing encounters, and it was entirely likely that the vast majority of them were nothing more than that. But now all of them were suspect, as well as anyone else we ran into.
And it wasn’t as if it was going to get easier. The closer we drew to Bowerstone Industrial, the more people we would be running into. Any of them could be Reaver’s eyes and ears, keeping track of me, reporting back on me.
The spy was still talking. “As soon as you went on your way, I was to send a raven to Reaver, telling him that you were still on the road to Bowerstone.”
“And what instructions do the others have?”
“I don’t know.”
The gnome licked his ear.
“I don’t know, gods’ truth, I don’t know!” the spy practically shrieked. Had we been at an inn where anyone gave a damn about others, people would have been crowding out to see what was going on. Instead, those sleeping within were probably just pulling their pillows over their ears and hoping that whoever was being shaken down for information would wind up with a knife in his heart sooner rather than later, so they could get some sleep. “I don’t even know who the others are! None of us does, except for the occasional contact. Reaver likes it that way.”
“I’m sure he does because lack of your knowledge is his power. The more he keeps you in the dark, the more control he has over you.”
“Please. I told you everything you wanted to know,” he said. “I did.”
The gnome was looking at me with such extraordinary disappointment. I knew I was standing at a crossroads in our relationship if one could use such a word with one such as he.
I patted the spy down quickly since I had no desire for him to pull a weapon on me the moment my back was turned. In short order, I came up with a dagger. I examined it carefully. There were dark stains on it.
Apparently our spy moonlighted as something more than a spy.
“Yes, you did tell me everything I wanted to know. However, I think I want to give you something to remember us by.”
I leaned forward, placing the tip of the dagger against the left side of his face. “Something on your cheek, perhaps.”
“No! No!”
“Yes.”
Abruptly I slammed my knee down into the small of his back, adding my own weight to the fact that the gnome had the spy’s head in a deadly hold. Then I reached lower, shoved his cape aside, and yanked down the upper part of his trousers, exposing part of his naked left buttock.
Then, with the tip of my dagger, I made a quick circular cut into the skin, leaving a trail of blood behind it. He let out a screech like the damned, and I said tightly, “Be grateful it’s not your throat I’m slicing through.”
“What did you do?”
“Carved a ‘g’ for ‘gnome.’ He likes being a pain in the ass, so I thought I’d give him an opportunity to be one literally instead of just figuratively. Now pay careful attention to what I’m about to tell you. Are you listening?” He bit down on his lip and nodded quickly, but there was pure hatred in his eyes. “I’m taking your little pigsticker here with me. I’m going to be heading in one direction, and you’re going in the opposite. Report back to Reaver, don’t report back to him, I don’t care. But don’t even think about trying to avenge yourself for this little affront, and here’s why: Gnomes don’t sleep. Ever. And he’s my eyes. So I will always see you coming, and next time you do, I’ll assume your intentions are hostile and shoot you between the eyes before you get within fifty feet of me. Is that clear?” He nodded again. “Say that it’s clear.”
“It’s clear,” he said with a growl.
“Good.”
I removed my knee from the small of his back and released him. He clambered to his feet, his face a bright red, which was a combination of his howling and his mortification. He hitched up the back of his trousers and winced from the pain. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t garner any sympathy from me.
“Go,” I said, pointing the way with his dagger.
With one final glower, he turned his back to me and shuffled off into the nearby woods. The gnome crouched next to me and watched him go with great interest. Then he looked up at me and, of course, scowled. “You didn’t kill him.”
“No.”
“You didn’t let me kill him.”
“ ‘Let’?” I regarded him with curiosity. “I doubt I could have stopped you if murder was truly in your heart. Do you actually have a heart?” When he didn’t answer but simply glared at me, I continued, “I notice that you talk a good game, but even now, when the opportunity was right there in your hands, you didn’t take his life. Why? Is there some gnome rule against it or something?”
He didn’t offer any sort of answer.
“I bet I know what it is,” I said at length.
“Oh, do ya?” he sneered.
“You think you’re better than humans.”
“I don’t think it. I know it.”
“You hate humans for killing so many of your kind, and you want us all dead. But at the same time, if you started killing us yourselves, then you’d be no better than the humans you despise for all the slaughter. So you cheer for our demise, and you urge me to kill others of my kind, but you want to keep your hands clean yourself.”
“You,” he said with thick disdain, “know nothing.”
“See, whereas I think I know more than you want to admit I do. But I’m not inclined to argue with you, especially when you did me such a service. Consider this, though. Every time our spy is interested in bedding a woman, he’s going to have to worry that sooner or later she’s going to ask him what the ‘g’ carved on his ass stands for. He’s going to have some uncomfortable moments ahead of him.”
“Especially when he sits down,” said the gnome.
We laughed. Together. It was certainly the first time that had happened, and when the gnome realized it, he quickly shut his mouth and, for the first time that I could recall, actually appeared mortified. He settled for scowling at me once more before leaping upward, sinking his fingers into the trunk of the nearest tree a
nd scurrying up into the protective cover of the branches.
“Thank you,” I said, “for watching out for me.”
He didn’t respond immediately. But as I climbed back through the window of my room, I could have sworn that, very faintly, a reluctant “You’re welcome” was muttered back to me.
Chapter 12
Threading the Needle
I COULD HAVE MADE A SERIOUS SPLASH upon returning to Bowerstone. Looked up old friends, reconnected with the members of the Bowerstone Resistance with whom I had fought side by side during the “great unpleasantness” as some people dryly referred to it. I did not do so, though, for two reasons.
The first was that this was hardly a social call. I had been tasked with the impossible job of choosing between my principles and my brother’s life, to say nothing of facing the notion of killing a woman who was—if not exactly a friend—at the very least a colleague.
The second was that by then I had a healthy dose of paranoia because I knew that Reaver had spies watching me, and I had no idea whom to trust. For all that I could be sure, Reaver might even have had paid spies within the Resistance itself. Why not? Being a freedom fighter wasn’t exactly what you would call a high-paying vocation. I could easily see him seducing certain members of the Resistance, grunts and such, to keep Reaver apprised of everything that Page was up to. Plus it wasn’t as if I were entirely unknown to the residents of Bowerstone. So additional eyes could easily have been recruited by his already existing network of unknown size to keep a watch on me.
Or there could be no one. It could have been that the spy back in Millfields had been the only one on Reaver’s payroll, and the things he had told me were not the truth at all; he could have just been an extremely convincing liar, and I was going to spend the rest of my time in Bowerstone, if not the rest of my life, jumping at shadows. Sometimes your own mind can be a far greater threat to you than actual enemies.
At that point, though, I couldn’t afford not to operate on the assumption that Reaver did indeed have people watching me everywhere I went. Which meant that the manner in which I handled my interaction with Page was going to be extremely crucial. The most frustrating thing was that, even after all this time, I still hadn’t worked out an actual plan of what to do. I was simply making things up as I went along, and that was a dangerous way to handle the situation. But I couldn’t find the emotional distance required to form a coherent plan of attack on the problem. Instead, I would simply have to rely on my instincts, and if those instincts prompted me to bury a knife between Page’s ribs, then that was what I was going to do.