Jak Barley-Private Inquisitor and the Case of the Seven Dwarves

by Dan Ehl

  The ceiling rose and dipped, often forcing Lorenzo to stoop in places that only brushed my head. A wavering line of soot ran the middle of the ceiling from the countless torches held aloft by its past inhabitants.

  "Are we almost there?" I asked, "I have to void my bladder."

  "Huh?" answered Lerk. He had stopped and the side of his face lit by the torch was pinched in puzzlement.

  "Piss, Lerk, I have to piss." I had swilled my usual morning mugs of hot hemp tea and found it now wanting to return from whence it came.

  "We be almost there," he curtly replied, then turned to continue the shepherding.

  Five minutes went by and the pressure was about to reach a climax. I furtively dropped back until I no longer cast shadows in the island of torchlight. My dwindling companions seemed as actors beneath a spot light, and I was in a far back row seat. The relief took but a moment and I quickly started off to rejoin them, only to be cast into complete darkness when they disappeared around a bend.

  I could only groan. What would the rest of the day be like if already I found myself stranded deep within the pitch-black den of some ancient cult, maybe not even human, and now used as a depository for decaying cadavers? I did not want to think about it. I extended by fingertips so they brushed the wall to my right and began cautiously making my way down the burrow.

  When the wall curved to my right, I guessed I was at the turn where I had lost sight of Lerk and Lorenzo, yet there was no distant bobbing light to mark their presence. I considered shouting, but it seemed too unmanly. It was an annoyance, but my only recourse was to continue blindly plodding along. I wished fervently that I had an ale.

  I knew I was in trouble when the wall again curved away from my fingers, but this time floundering about in the dark led my hands to discover the tunnel split into two passageways, and neither showed any sign of light.

  "Lorenzo, come look at this," I shouted. "There is, ah, a very interesting geological formation I want you to see."

  No answer.

  "Lerk, bring that torch back so I can examine this rock formation," I bellowed louder.

  Still no answer.

  "Help-p-p-p-p," I finally screamed.

  Again, no answer. The only course was to wait where I was. If I took the wrong turn, who knew where I would find myself? Lorenzo and Lerk were bound to finally miss me and retrace their steps.

  I squatted down and leaned with my back against the wall. Good private inquisitors would utilize such times to ponder their cases. The slight vestiges on last night's bout of drinking, along with the understandable fidgetiness of my current plight, did not lend themselves to contemplation.

  My thoughts kept wandering to the possible creatures that would dwell in such dank environs as these. There were rumors of skulking giant snakes that slithered silently through the sodden sewers in search of succulent snacks of rats and vagrants. I shuddered.

  There were murmurings in harbor taverns of iridescent blue diretoads with needle-sharp fangs. They supposedly prowl in packs, often dropping from sewer ceilings onto unwary prey.

  And what about those strange bugs from the Inn of the Six Toed Cat's water closet? My skin crawled at the thought of my hand brushing across one of them.

  I was becoming a bit nettled. Surely by now Lorenzo would have noted my absence. What was keeping him? It was while attempting to visualize the fishmonger's daughter naked that my ears caught a faint sound of voices. Or was it my imagination? With head cocked I held my breath, but strain as I did, all I could hear was the incessant dripping.

  What was that? I caught just a snatch of distant voices. They seemed to be coming from the left tunnel.

  Though leery of leaving the junction, I reluctantly decided to at least explore the left tunnel a few paces to see if the voices grew louder. They did. I cautiously continued until I came to another split in the hall. The voices were much louder and I chose the passage from where they echoed. A turn in the burrow revealed a light at the end of the tunnel.

  Chapter Four

  I approached with little elation, even though I was eager to be out of the lightless halls. Almost tiptoeing as I reached the doorway, I flattened myself against the wall and craned my neck to peer into the torch-lit chamber. Even in my most unshackled fantasy, I would never have imagined the impossible sight that met my startled eyes. It could only be the mysterious coroners feasting--and they were dwarves. About a dozen of them sat around a massive wooden table with legs that ended in the carved feet of griffins.

  I could not tear my eyes away from the fare arrayed before them. There on large silver platters were dismembered heads of lettuce, heaps of fruit, and mounds green vegetables. The coroners could only be dwarves, but even more short of stature than the ones of which I was familiar. I have never heard of dwarves being anything but miners and meat eaters.

  "You appear too lively to be one of our usual guests. And it seems unlikely you would have just wondered off the streets and became lost. May I ask what you seek here?"

  The unexpected voice from behind me almost sent me jumping from my boots. I spun around to find myself chest to face with one of the diminutive dwarves. The faint light from the doorway revealed a wrinkled, yet candid face that looked up at me in puzzlement.

  "Ah, well it is funny you should mention that, but I am lost. I, ah, was following one of the assistant bloodletters and had to pause for a…," I stopped, averse to mentioning that I had been urinating in their hallway,"...ah, rest and lost my companions."

  The dwarf examined me with probing eyes, though not unfriendly.

  ""For what reason are you in our halls?"

  "I am a private inquisitor on an investigation for some coal dwarves. I was being led to the bodies of the Reverian Assassins brought here last night or today."

  "You be Jak Barley, the ferret."

  "Jak Barley, private inquisitor," I huffed.

  The dwarf laughed. "You have the speech of this Jak Barley. Be you hungry? Come and join me while I eat then we shall see you to your chore."

  "You know of me?"

  "The coal dwarves have spoken of you," he answered. "They be an eccentric lot, smitten with this Frost Ivory. My name be Fren."

  The heads at the table turned as we entered, a look of surprise showing on some. The others turned nonchalantly back to their meals.

  "I do not mean to be impudent, but I have never heard of dwarves being anything but miners. You are the bloodletters?"

  "It be a long story, lost to outsiders. We burrowed these tunnels for the Cloud People many centuries ago and returned when they left. In the beginning and as a fringe calling, we were healers for those of the dwarfish race. Somehow the task broadened to the study of baneful agues, injuries, and poisons that lead to death. From there, and much known of those days be now lost, we came to determine the causes of mortality for all races."

  "Why keep this a secret?" I asked as we approached the table. "The hearsay is that you coroners are ghoulish creatures. And even darker tales have you dining on, ah..." I didn't know how to proceed.

  "Sit here," the dwarf said as he pointed to an ornately carved chair next to the seat he took. "It began as shame for leaving the quarrying of our race for this avocation. Afterwards, it grew to habit. And the myth that has grown around this morgue suits us for it abets our privacy."

  I sniffed about and caught not a trace of the unpleasant odors that assailed me in the beginning. Obviously the stench was also a ploy to ward away curious guests.

  The rest of the dwarves were surprisingly indifferent to my appearance. I looked questioningly at the different plates among the raw fruits and vegetables.

  "That be eggplant provencale, this be zucchini-feta cheese strudel and here be tofu garlic dressing for the salad," he identified the platters. "I think you will especially like the pasta with broccoli and cashews and the yogurt-barley soup. Gimpy, pass our guest the potato-onion-rye bread"

  I couldn't help showing my confusion. "This does not seem the fare of dwarv
es."

  He smiled again. "When one works with the subjects we do, flesh loses it appeal."

  "That seems reasonable, but I have never heard of these dishes."

  "A traveler once introduced us to many of them. He brought us the seeds and we till small plots among the ledges of the cliff that are only accessible from the warrens that honeycomb this rock. Until then, we existed on blander fare."

  Fren loaded my plate with a variety of foods. What the dwarf named as a fresh pea sauce with mushrooms, grown in their own warrens, over pasta was delicious. My fork stopped halfway on a return trip to my mouth as I had an unexpected thought. "Would this traveler's name be Lorenzo Spasm?"

  "Why yes, do you know of him?" Fren replied in surprise.

  I sighed as I set the fork back on my plate. "He is a companion of mine and even now is most likely inspecting the bodies of the Reverian Assassins."

  At my remark, the dwarves, until now seemingly oblivious to our conversation, turned to look at me with interest. A murmur traveled about the table as they passed the word of Lorenzo along in whispers.

  "That be good news. We will be honored to have him once again at our table."

  I was a bit irritated with my friend. "Lorenzo did not mention that he was familiar with the Duburoake Morgue, let alone that he knew of your order."

  "He respects our privacy, as we enjoin you also to remain silent of our existence. Think of this as confidential information dealing with your clients, since we also be dwarves and will aid you in your quest. The Witch, Morganna, is whispered to be no friend of the dwarves, nor any being who does not walk the dark ways--and I speak not of our unlit burrows."

  The meal was pleasant, though most of the dwarves spoke little to me as if still unsure of my promised silence. I finally pushed my chair back and sighed with utter contentment from the tomato-ginger chutney.

  "Come, my ferret. You must be impatient to return to your quest," said a smiling Fren.

  "That be private inquisitor," I answered without thought as I stood and let a notch out of my belt.

  We backtracked to the doorway from where I had first spied the bloodletters. My new guide took one of several torches piled by the portal, lit it from one mounted on the wall, and set off down the burrow. For one with as small of feet, Fren maintained a speedy stride. I almost had to run to keep pace with him. Therefore it was but minutes until we arrived at our destination.

  "This be it," Fren said as we stepped through the doorway to gaze about at a room littered with a dozen corpses left carelessly lying about the floor.

  "Not much for housekeeping, these assistants," I observed. "It is so hard to find good help these days."

  I looked down to see my guide finding no humor in my jesting.

  "There be something terribly amiss," he answered in a strained voice.

  We entered to view the scene of a recent slaughter. A closer examination showed the dead wearing the dingy smocks of assistants, with the one once-pristine robe of a coroner now stained by the dwarf's own blood. I stopped to kneel by the body of my former guide, Lerk. His throat was slashed and his eyes stared blankly at the ceiling.

  There was no trace of the three corpses belonging to the Reverian Assassins. Nor of Lorenzo. I grabbed Fren's torch and quickly searched the shadowed corners of the room. One wall was honeycombed with storage vaults and I thrust the torch into the recesses that had their doors swung open.

  "My companion, Lorenzo, there is no trace of him," I found myself yelling at Fren from across the room.

  I took a deep breath and forced myself to appear calm. It was better that my friend was unaccounted for than to find his body outstretched on the floor. I steadied myself and scanned the room. It was then I noticed that several of the bodies, though garbed in the commonplace stained smocks which seemed to be standard uniforms for the help, had an odd look to them. I crouched by the nearest and pulled back the hood to stare into the tattooed face of a Reverian Assassin.

  "What be this?" Fren asked anxiously over my shoulder. "What madness would have them garb an assassin's corpse in a helper's smock?"

  I stood and placed a steadying hand upon the dwarf. Though he lived and breathed in the presence of death every day, it was a death that evinced itself in the form of cold, silent bodies. Here still was the hot blood spilled of violence, a death that struck not outside the walls of their abode, but a personal carnage that stalked within their very own halls. Fren's wrinkled face had taken on a gray cast, and he appeared lost and confused.

  "Fren, this is not one of three assassin cadavers brought in by the Duburoake constables," I said as I again turned to examine the body. "This one appears to have died while wearing the garb of your assistants."

  I nudged the corpse with the toe of my boot. The stiffening that affects a corpse within hours of death had yet to set in. The blood seeping from a number of wounds was only now coagulating.

  "My notion is that Lorenzo caught them by surprise as they were attempting to retrieve the bodies of their compatriots. I have heard the Reverians loathe leaving any signs of their passing other than that of their victims. It gives them an edge when the general populace fancies them as invincible."

  "Still," I asked myself as much as Fren, "why would there be such a contingent of these assassins in Duburoake that they could not only mount last night's murderous undertaking but this second foray? I have never heard of more than one or two of these sneakabouts anywhere at one time."

  A quick inspection of the room showed that two of the would-be assistant bloodletters were really assassins. Another three undisguised bodies were the corpses from last night. That added up to five of the villains, and I was guessing there were even more or Lorenzo would still be here. Since I doubted the rogues took prisoners or that they removed my friend's body while leaving those of their own, it could only mean Lorenzo was ardently on their trail.

  I was only half aware that Fren had rushed off, probably to alert the others of his guild. I was intently examining one of the freshly dispatched assassins. Beneath the hooded white smock was the workaday apparel of a trader--chestnut trousers of light canvas and the baggy, forest-green hooded tunics that can be seen about any caravan. It was going to be a while before I could look at anyone wearing a concealing hood and not be wary.

  I pinched off a flake of mud from the assassin's boot and crumbled it between thumb and finger. It was an honest soil, if not very fertile, and not the filthy muck that coated the gutters in town. I sprinkled some over my tongue. It was mostly clay and lacked the salty flavor of soil near the harbor. I scraped more of the dirt from the other boot and found the seed head of a wormwort, plants that grow only in the rugged hillsides above the city.

  I fought the urge to be off wildly chasing through the warrens looking for Lorenzo and instead began methodically inspecting each of the assassins. Their pockets were empty except for a few coins and an odd assortment of needles, wire, and small blades.

  I guessed them to have reached Duburoake by horse. There were traces of saddle oil on their breeches, as well as the worn indentations in their leather boots that are left by stirrups. The bottom of their feet also showed a lack of calluses.

  Running my fingers through one of the killer's short dense beard, I found rye bread crumbs. The particles were sticky, as if having been coated with honey. There was a faint odor of garlic and mint about his lips.

  "Make haste," I ordered as Fren returned with a number of distraught assistants. "Tell me what these knaves last ate."

  If the bloodletters' probing found what I expected, I knew where the vipers' nest was located.

  Torn between a feeling of urgency and nausea caused by the labor being performed by the trolls and their help, I hovered at the edge of their table. As always, I found the smell the worst. There is something obscene about the odor of a man's bowel being ripped open, as if it were nature's way of warning that something was horribly awry. No wonder the dwarves had become vegetarians.

  But at last their
task was done.

  "We found an array of victuals in these assassins," Fren finally reported. "But all of them had eaten within the last six hours a meal that included a rye bread, turnip greens, and turtle seasoned heavily with mint and garlic."

  I wasn't even aware I had been holding my breath until Fren gave his findings and I let out a deep, slow breath. There was only one place that fit all the clues--The Coal Diggers Inn. It nestled along a back road leading in to Duburoake, tucked back among abandoned mining equipment in various stages of rot and decay. Unlike dwarves, humans tended to be slovenly with such enterprises. The veins of coal in that area had played out years ago and the once thriving village of Magic was now but a ghost town; the abandoned, dilapidated homes and stores like the skeletal remains of some great beast.