by Max Anthony
Sally Glum was languishing in a chair. She was surprisingly young to be leading a gang of ne’er-do-wells, with the appearance of being in her mid-twenties. When she spoke, she also proved to be as eloquent as Jerry the Ratchet, which is to say she could speak in more than just grunts and expletives.
“I see you’ve met the Turbot,” said she. Skulks looked blank.
“My bodyguard over there,” she expanded, pointing at the answerer-of-front-doors.
“Ah yes, the Turbot. A splendid gentleman, he.”
“Before I ask him to squash you and throw you out of the top floor window, please tell me why you are here.” Skulks was impressed. She’d issued a double-barrelled threat, rather than offering the mere rusty fork in the eye propounded by Jerry. Perhaps he’d underestimated her.
With no affiliation to either party, Skulks dug deep into his pocket of verbal nonsense. It was a very deep pocket.
“Jerry the Ratchet asks for your hand in marriage,” said Skulks, watching as Sally Glum almost choked on her saliva.
“That old git? Wants to marry me? What nonsense is it that you bring into my office?”
“I speak the truth milady. He has hired me, Dembo lo Dembo as both negotiator and wedding planner to bring the two of you together and ensure that your nuptials are as beautiful as the blushing bride.” Sally Glum was speechless. She knew she should be angry, but puzzlement was making it difficult for her to concentrate.
“So Jerry the Ratchet has sent you here with a proposal of marriage in the middle of the night, without so much as a bunch of flowers?”
“Yes, Lady Glum. He realises now how foolish he has been and wishes only that the two of you be together, all the better to expand your business empires as well as your love for each other.”
“I don’t love him! He’s an old fool and I’ve only met him once!”
“Lord Ratchet has asked me to give you this token to show his sincerity.” Skulks produced Henry the Cheese’s pocket watch. “This watch was presented to Lord Ratchet over twenty years ago by Doris Grumps in recognition of him being the only man to best her in Dirty Dirty Combat. It is his most treasured possession and he wishes for you to have it.”
Sally Glum got up from her chair and took the watch from Skulks. She looked at it closely.
“This is just a cheap trinket!” she exclaimed. “Hardly worth ten Slivers!”
“Its value is in the sentiment, Lady Glum. Baron Ratchet is very fond of it.”
“Baron Ratchet? I thought you just called him Lord Ratchet?”
“He has been researching his family tree, madam, and in truth has been able to trace his lineage back over a thousand years. His earliest ancestors were barons and baronets. He believes there may even be a duke or two.”
Sally Glum looked dazed. “Duke Ratchet? I can’t believe any of this.”
In truth, Sally Glum had little choice but to believe it. For while Skulks congratulated himself on his quick mind and tongue to convince people of almost anything, in reality it was his Wielding exerting an influence on the subject of his words, subtly directing their thoughts into line with those of Skulks. Lucy Amber was another Wielder who had this power, though far in excess of that which Skulks possessed. Skulks didn’t even know why he was so successful at compelling people to believe in his drivel, it just happened naturally for him. More drivel was pouring from his mouth now:
“The duke wishes for House Ratchet to become great once more. He has seen your great skill and cunning from afar and has fallen deeply for you.”
Sally Glum was struggling for a suitable response. Part of her mind wanted to say “Piss off!” and ask the Turbot to fulfil the promised defenestration. This part of her mind found it had no control over her voice box, which squeaked out her next words.
“When does the duke wish to marry me?”
“The ceremony shall take place within the week. All the duke asks is for a show of your own affection. He wishes for you to return his silver hearing trumpet which you have stolen from him.”
Glum looked bemused. “What? I don’t have his hearing trumpet. Why would I want a hearing trumpet?”
“The duke knows you to have an involvement in these burglaries around the city. It is their skill and zest which has drawn him to you!”
“My lord is wrong,” said Glum. “I have had no part in these crimes. The word on the street is that wizardry is involved, for no mortal thief could move so silently, nor so freely.” At the mention of the word ‘wizardry’, Skulks ground his teeth.
“Very well, my lady. I shall go and report this to the duke.”
“Oh my! His lordship won’t be too upset, will he?”
Dembo lo Dembo strode from the house without further word. Once out of sight around the corner he stopped to take a series of deep breaths.
“Wizards! Is there no end to them?”
Six
Early the following morning, Captain T Skulks of Hardened’s Office of Covert Operations headed with purpose to his office. There were two important tasks in his immediate future and he was eager to get started on them. The first task was easily accomplished. He walked into his office, swept the contents of his to-do tray into the bin and left his office, locking the door behind him so that no one would be able to refill it in his absence.
The second task saw him head into the Office of Civic Events. This was one of the smaller offices in Hardened, but it oversaw proposals for carnivals, festivals, exhibitions and so forth. Paperwork needed to be signed before events could take place. The Chamber Council took health and safety very seriously, which seemed at odds with their lax approach to building regulations. Skulks imagined that they simply didn’t want to mess with tradition.
Today this office was occupied by Skulks’ favourite elderly clerk, a bespectacled man of advancing years whom Skulks was fond of and who seemed to work in every department Skulks needed information from. He was starting to wonder if there were three or four such clerks, all strikingly similar in appearance. Or perhaps they were triplets, all with the same name. None of these ideas were correct. There was just one of him, a clerk by the name of Ferty Slipper who by coincidence alone was always working in the same office that Skulks needed information from.
“Good Morning, Tan,” said he, happy to address Skulks with familiarity. “Up early today?”
“Good Morning Ferty. Yes, I’m up early. Things to do, wizards to catch.”
“I hope those crackpots haven’t been causing you too much consternation recently?”
Skulks put a hand on Ferty’s shoulder. “The less said about those arm-flailing, jibber-jabberers the better! Now, then - I need some information on the Wizards’ Convention.”
“It’s all in that log book in the corner.” A scrawny arm was raised and a long, thin finger indicated the location of the log book. Skulks swept it up and opened it on a desk.
Hosting the Wizards’ Convention was quite a feather in the cap, for the event was famous throughout the known world, although infamous would have been an equally apt description. It was due to take place in just under six weeks’ time, at the Heavenly Snouts Auditorium. The Chamber Council liked civic buildings to be privately funded as much as possible and the auditorium was now sponsored by the Pig Farmers’ union.
All the wizards, adepts, mages and other despicable dirt-swallowers were to be hosted in the adjacent Hardened Republic; a fine-quality hotel, for wizards were known to prefer fine-quality rooms. And if they didn’t get fine-quality rooms, they tended to get a little bit shirty, often resulting in a fireball or two being petulantly hurled if room service wasn’t up to scratch, or if the mini bar had run out of Everseen Scrumptious. Not that they were allowed to get away with it. Such irascible behaviour would normally result in a visitation by sufficient armed men to beat the wizard into submission and drag them away to the cells, but by that point the damage had generally been done.
Skulks pieced together what he’d learned. Burglaries were happening. Burglaries which w
ere beyond the skills of Hardened’s mostly semi-incompetent thief class. An established thief had blamed wizardry, which made sense now that Skulks thought about it. In other circumstances he’d have been out hunting Tiopan Lunder as the likely culprit, but Lunder had only escaped after the thefts had begun, ruling him out of the list of candidates. The Wizards’ Convention was treated as a big party by most of the attendees, who would descend in droves upon the host city, often well in advance of the Convention’s start. It wasn’t like they had a day job to go to. As such, there was no shortage of suspects.
“There’s a wizard behind all of this,” thought Skulks. “I must track this person down, thrash them and recover my stolen dagger-swords.” With his thoughts brightening as he imagined his righteous fist connecting with a wizard’s indignant nose, he left the Chamber Building with a new spring in his stride.
The Hardened Republic was a magnificent building, with over three hundred rooms for guests to hire. Even with this number of rooms, it was insufficiently large to house all of the wizards who were coming to Hardened and it had been fully booked for months by messengers sent from lands afar, bringing deposit monies for rooms and suites. Wizards were known to be tight and rarely paid up front where a deposit was sufficient. The hotel prided itself on ensuring all guests were cossetted from the moment they arrived, until the moment they checked out, with their every need catered for and all done in the strictest of confidence.
So it was that the receptionist at the desk who found himself speaking to Captain Skulks, was left in something of a quandary. Captain Skulks, in possession of all correct documentation advising him to hold a senior post in the Chamber Building, required information that hotel policy forbade it to provide, which is to say a guest list.
“I’ll get the manager,” said the receptionist. He’d tried to be snooty, but wasn’t very good at it and had wilted under Skulks’ stare. He went into a small back room, where Skulks’ excellent hearing was able to pick out a very forthright and unpleasant evaluation of him and his station.
“Why the man looks like an outright pleb!” said the receptionist. “How dare he think to make demands of us!”
Skulks saw what he assumed was the manager poke her head around the door to look at him. He pretended he was examining a nearby oil painting. The head was withdrawn.
“He says he works for the Chamber Council does he? I’ll soon send him packing. We can’t have hoi-polloi like him scaring off our guests and trailing mud onto the hotel’s carpets. Whatever will the wizards think?”
The manager left the back room and stood in front of Skulks, her face set in a most patronising smile which suggested she despised him utterly. She was snooty, but better at it than the receptionist. Skulks found himself wondering if promotion was based on snootiness, such that the higher up the chain of the hotel’s management one got, the snootier they would be. A few thefts from the guest rooms would bring them down a peg or two, he thought.
The manager spoke. “Ye-e-e-es?” she asked Skulks, drawing the word out to a full six times its normal length. He knew already that he was wasting his time asking her for assistance. Skulks made a play of looking at her name badge, which informed him that she was called Marjory.
“My dearest Mrs Madge,” he said, getting up her dander for Marjory was her first name rather than her surname and additionally she disliked being called Madge. Thirdly, she was not married for she took her snootiness home with her after work and it didn’t enamour her to potential suitors. “I require to see the guest list of those who have checked into your mid-range room-for-hire establishment.” He saw her flinch at his dismissive evaluation of the hotel.
“Mr Skrulks,” she replied, incapable even of pronouncing his name correctly. “It is the hotel’s policy that no information about guests shall be made available. Even to those purporting to work for the Chamber Council. The hotel is most specific in this regard.”
“Very well,” said Skulks, raising his voice somewhat, “but please be aware that the person whom I seek has been afflicted by a very rare and very virulent strain of Cerebral Desplosion! It is characterised by a necessity to drink oneself unconscious and also by an unpleasant-smelling discharge from the sufferer’s armpits! After some days, the sufferer will froth at the mouth and start babbling nonsense!” There was a bit of muttering from other guests queuing at reception and a few of them looked closely at the people nearby. Skulks felt that he’d adequately described every wizard that there had ever been, so was content that his work was done.
“I shall return with a warrant,” spake he, turning to leave. “And I warn that you will be held directly responsible for any of the slow, horrible, agonising deaths that may ensue from this outbreak!” With her certainty in the hotel’s confidentiality policy wavering, Madge watched Skulks’ back as he left the lobby.
Two and a half minutes after exiting the lobby, Skulks was back in the Hardened Republic, though this time he had entered through the service doorway at the back, which allowed the small army of support staff into the hotel without upsetting the guests. Skulks had long been aware that in order to gain access to most places all he needed to do was to look like he had every business being there. So even though he was dressed in his slightly careworn tunic, trousers and boots, he walked with projected confidence, yet without really knowing where he was going. He was seen but went unnoticed.
Eventually he came to the attention of a woman with a Sense of Responsibility, who was either an avowed busybody or in charge of a minor service section within the hotel.
“Are you lost?” came her voice from somewhere behind him. Skulks had by now passed through the laundry rooms and kitchen and was looking for a way that would lead him into the hotel itself behind the lobby area.
“Mmmmbl mmmummhm,” said Skulks.
“Might I ask what you are doing here? Do you work for the hotel?”
“Ummflll grimbble!” continued Skulks, waving his arms around slightly and wiggling his fingers. He turned to look at the woman, with his eyes rolling about like a lunatic. Immediately categorising him as a wizard and therefore an important guest, the woman became more helpful.
“Kind sir, you must be lost. Are you looking for your room? Which room are you staying in?”
“Rimble rimble!” uttered Skulks, looking her squarely in the shoulder.
“Oh dear. I shall direct you to the lobby. The manager will know what to do!” With that, she put a tentative hand on his shoulder and ushered him towards a door a few yards away, with Skulks doing his best to sound like a wizard. With a practised politeness, the woman opened the door for the hotel’s guest, who moved through it with a sudden speed into the corridor beyond, momentarily leaving her sight. The woman followed him, only to find that the corridor was now empty. She stood there for a moment making huffing and puffing sounds, before heading back to her duties.
“Bloody wizards,” Skulks heard her mutter from his shadowed position further along the corridor.
Staying unseen in a busy hotel would test him greatly, so Skulks proceeded with haste. The lobby itself had been far too busy for him to remain hidden, but here in the hotel itself there were fewer people as they dispersed throughout the building. There was a small office complex behind the lobby area, with a smattering of staff. Today they were disturbed by a tendency for their closed doors to drift open, as if a draught from outside had pushed gently upon them. It was strange, for there was no draught and the doors were on their latches. Nevertheless, when a closed door drifts open in broad daylight, one generally attributes the cause to wind or something else mundane.
Soon, the stealthy Skulks was locked in a downstairs guest toilet, with a copy of the guest list upon his knee as he went about his business. The hotel was quite busy and this far in advance of the Convention there were many normal guests. The Heavenly Snouts was hosting an antiques fair, which was to be the last event before preparations started for the Wizards’ Convention.
Fortunately for Skulks, wizards all
had a stage name, even if they didn’t introduce themselves by it. So a hypothetical wizard called Eric Flaps might refer to himself as Eric Flaps or simply ‘Eric’ when speaking to friends and family. However, in the company of other magic-users, he might be known as Erico the Ravening Sandstorm, Eyrich Droc Hurricane or whatever he thought sounded better than Eric Flaps.
The guest list had three such ridiculous names upon it. The hotel evidently preferred its guests to also provide a real name, for each absurd entry also had a parenthesised entry adjacent. These names were: Dirmulis Frok Dredflames (Dirk Twonk), Yar-Yar the Heart-Thrasher (Yurt Ploughman) and lastly Tolerant the Invincible Thief Snatcher (Humpy Wagglehorn).
“Sometimes,” thought Skulks standing up from his throne with trousers still around his ankles, “things just fall into your lap.”
Humpy Wagglehorn was located in Room 227 on the second floor. It was only mid-morning, so Skulks thought he might yet catch the wizard asleep, or she might be absent, helping herself to her fifteenth plate from the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet.
Outside her room he paused, listening intently for snoring or other sounds of activity. There were none. With caution, Skulks stripped away the minor wards Wagglehorn had placed around the door and used his Wielding powers to unlock it. Inside, the room was dark with the curtains closed, for wizards often shunned sunlight as much as they shunned regular bathing. Skulks didn’t need light to see, so he swept his gaze across the room. It was one of the hotel’s smaller two-room suites, but comfortable and excellent by the standards of most accommodation. The room Skulks had entered was furnished with chairs and a writing desk. He walked over to the desk, seeing a large, thickly-bound tome sitting there, inviting him to open it. Leafing through a few pages, Skulks saw that it was Wagglehorn’s spellbook, wherein she would take notes and jottings of spells that she had learned or was working on.