Anthem Of The Dwarf King

by Charley Case

  “Holbrook,” he said, taking a step back and sitting on a stool next to the table that held his wares.

  “Holbrook. I’ll remember that.” Finn tipped an imaginary hat to him. “See you around, kid.”

  After making his way to the back of the Market, he found the large green tent. It took up the space of four stalls, spread out against the whitewashed wall. The entrance was pinned open, and warm yellow light filtered out into the path.

  Finn stepped in and the sounds of the market disappeared, replaced by the crackle of flame and smell of incense in the air. A double row of tall shelves kept him from seeing beyond the wares on display. An aisle split the rows, allowing a view of green cloth at the back of the tent, where lined tables exhibited more items. Hanging braziers with low flames hung from the central beam.

  Finn proceeded down the center aisle, checking the rows to be sure there wasn't anyone else in the tent. He wondered if he was feeling the effects of a dampening spell. When he got to the back wall, he checked both ways, not seeing anyone, but spying a counter tucked into the far right corner. Nobody occupied it, but he saw a crystal formation behind it that made him do a double-take.

  As he headed down the row, Finn marveled at the crystal. It had to weigh several tons and was clear as glass. He noted cut edges, so it had been formed to a degree, but along the top and back ridges, spikes stuck out anywhere from an inch to a foot. He couldn't determine its composition, but he guessed it could be a pure diamond. Priceless, even in these far reaches of the universe.

  Finn leaned over the wooden countertop for a better look and jumped back when the crystal structure sat up and regarded him with emerald eyes.

  “Can I help you?” the diamond asked, its voice high and childlike.

  Finn’s mouth open and closed a few times, unable to put together a sentence.

  The diamond blinked, then frowned. “Haven't you seen a crystal golem before?”

  “Uh, yeah, but not one made of diamond!”

  The giant was hard to read because he was prismatic and slowly changed expressions, as if he operated at half speed compared to the world around him.

  His mouth split into a glacier-slow smile, showing off perfectly formed diamond teeth. “You like it? I grew it myself.” He lifted a foot-thick arm, admiring it in the firelight.

  The childlike voice threw the interaction off for Finn. He had expected a deep and rumbling voice, like the golems he’d come across. He wondered if the diamond body had something to do with it. Perhaps it vibrated at a higher frequency or something.

  Finn recovered and approached the counter, noting the creature’s size. “I’m looking for Timmy. That wouldn't be you, would it?”

  A slow nod sent light dancing across the tent’s ceiling. “At your service, dwarf. Finnegan, is it?”

  “How did you know that?”

  Timmy shrugged. “People talk. I like to listen. Never know when it might be worth something.”

  Finn had dealt with info brokers almost as often as store owners. If it was valuable, they’d find a way to profit, and rarely did favors come from them without one in return.

  “I hear you deal some in dwarven artifacts?” Finn, now composed, grinned and leaned an elbow on the counter. “Don't suppose you would mind showing me what you have? The good stuff. I don't have use for charms and trinkets, if you know what I mean.”

  Timmy nodded, then gazed at the ceiling in thought. It seemed some body language was universal. “I don't have anything in stock at the moment, but you might convince me to let you know what comes in…for a finder’s fee.”

  Finn snorted. “How much are we talking?”

  “Five hundred upfront.”

  “To let me know when you get something in? That’s outrageous.” Finn had the money, but he knew if he agreed right away, he would be overcharged for everything he tried to buy here for the rest of his life.

  “If you wish to pass, no diamond dust off my back.” He made to turn away.

  “How about this?” Finn put a hand on Timmy’s arm. The diamond was freezing cold and made his fingers numb. He snatched his hand back and blew on his fingers.

  “You have a counteroffer?” Timmy prompted.

  Sticking his hand in his pocket, Finn said, “I’ll give you five hundred, but it goes toward the purchase price of the artifact if I buy it. If I don't, you can keep it.”

  “That works for me,” Timmy agreed. He pulled on a giant rubber glove and extended his large hand. Finn tried to shake it, but Timmy’s hand was so big he ended up gripping his pointer finger and shaking it like a child.

  Finn knew Timmy would simply raise the price by five hundred when he came in, but it made him look less like a pushover. He turned, pulled out his roll of bills, peeled five hundreds off the stack, and stuffed the rest back into his pocket. He turned back and handed the bills to the giant, who plucked them from him.

  “Will that be all?” Timmy asked, a smile on his clear face.

  “I’m looking for something that’s hard to find. I hear you’re the man, or golem in this case, to talk to.” Finn leaned a hip on the counter, letting the tension build. “I need a rifle.”

  Timmy blinked twice. “There are gun stores on every street corner up there.” He pointed a thick finger at the ceiling. “Go see a Peabrain about that.”

  “I need a magical one—something that doesn't make a lot of noise, but has a good amount of power.” He described the rifle Preston had loaned Mila during the hunt for the hellhounds.

  Timmy listened, nodding along until Finn finished. “I know the type you’re looking for.”

  “Great.” Finn rubbed his hands together. “How much will it cost me?”

  “Oh, I don't have one. I do know what you’re talking about however.”

  Finn's face fell. “Oh. Well, shit. I guess I can add that to the list of things to tell me about when they come in.” He pulled out one of the cards Penny had made up with his name and number on it and slid it across the counter.

  He turned to go.

  “I do have a pistol if that would work,” the childlike voice continued.

  Chapter Eleven

  Mila sat on the edge of Danica's king-sized bed, her feet not touching the floor as she leaned back on outstretched arms and crossed her ankles. She watched as Danica went through her dresser picking out clothes she wanted to take to the cabin.

  Danica turned and held up a sky blue bikini top with white polka dots to her chest. “What do you think about this one?”

  “Super cute. Goes with your pale skin like it was made for you,” Mila said, not knowing what to say. “Um, you seem to be taking this whole having a bounty on your head pretty well.”

  Danica shrugged, pulling out the matching bottoms to the bikini. She stuffed them in her duffel before pulling out a second swimsuit, a monokini with more fabric than the previous top alone. She held the shiny black swimsuit up, turning one way then the other, looking down at herself before tossing it back in the drawer.

  “I guess I kind of expected it,” Danica said, rooting deeper into the drawer. She extracted a basic black bikini. She didn't even ask about that one, just stuffed it into her duffel and kept looking. “The moment I met Finn I knew my life would be harder, but I also knew it would be better.”

  Mila laughed. “How is fighting off hitmen and assassins better?”

  “Well, it’s exciting.” She turned and held up a burnt orange top with black edges and straps. “You like this one?”

  “Yeah. I like that a lot.”

  Danica threw it to Mila along with the bottoms. “Good. I can't get away with orange, it makes my skin look too pink, and it goes better with your complexion. I think I bought it when we first met. God, I wanted to be tan back then.” She chuckled, and moved to the next drawer, hesitated, reached into the first drawer, and stuffed the monokini into her duffel. She gave Mila a coy smile. “Maybe Phil can come up when this is all over.”

  “Oh, yeah. The morgue guy.” Mila crossed he
r legs and tucked her bare feet under her. “How’s that going? Why don't you ever bring him over? I feel you’re having a secret love affair behind my back.”

  Danica pulled out several pairs of panties Mila thought had too much lace for a dangerous mission. Then again, she wasn't sure Danica owned any other kind.

  “Well, I can't bring him here, what with Penny doing Penny things and us having a full blown dojo in the living room. He’s not ‘in the know,’ as it were. I think he’s self conscious to be seen with me.” She folded the underwear and placed them in the duffel before putting her hands on her hips and scrutinizing her selections. “How long do you think we’ll be up there?”

  Mila tucked her hair behind her ear, leaned forward, and rested her elbows on her knees. “I don't know. Preston said the keys will work for a month. If we need longer, he can extend them. I don't see why we would need to be there that long. I feel like this is all going to come crashing down soon.” Mila stared into the distance, trying to envision how it would all end and coming up blank. “Didn't you only take off a week?”

  “Yeah, but I have an insane amount of vacation days. I’ve never missed a day at the hospital and the vacation rolls over forever. I could take the next six months off if I wanted, although I wouldn't want to do that to my patients.” She considered for a few seconds, then pulled out a second stack of underwear and put them in the bag beside the first stack. “Eh, better safe than naked.”

  Mila laughed. “Not something I thought to hear you say. You like to be naked a lot. I’m surprised you don't still make your naked trips to the laundry every other day.”

  “I can't do that! At least not when Finn's here. I check before I come out now, but you’re usually with Finn, so you don't get the show anymore,” she said with fake haughtiness before pulling out a stack of thick fleece leggings and packing them. “I think that’s about it. Bathroom stuff in there, clothes for two weeks in here, bathing suits for the hot springs, and that bag has my shoes.” She pointed to a second duffel bulging with footwear.

  “You brought outdoor gear, right? Hiking boots, thermal underwear, and what not?”

  Danica imparted her a sarcastic glare. “I may be blonde, but I dye my hair, thank you very much. Come on, we need to get you and Finn packed.”

  Mila scooted off the bed. She followed Danica into the living room and toward her room. “I have to say, I have known a lot of dumb people, but I can't say they were mostly blonde. Where did that idea even come from?”

  “The eighties,” Danica said, opening the door to Mila's room and heading straight for her closet.

  Mila glanced over and saw the large female orb weaver spider cradled in her web beside the window. “You doing all right? Not getting too hungry?”

  She had opened the window a crack and blocked all but a small hole for the spider to come and go as she pleased. The yellow and black orb weaver bowed, and Mila’s mind filled with an affirmative and appreciative feeling.

  “Good. We’ll be gone a while, so you’ll have the place to yourself. Try not to cover the whole house in webs.” She chuckled at the shocked feeling coming from the spider at such an admonishment. She asserted she couldn't make that much web if her life depended on it; not in winter, at least, when food was so scarce.

  “What did you say?” Danica came out of the walk-in, her arm draped with dresses.

  “Nothing.” Mila looked at the dresses and frowned. “Why did you bring those out?”

  Danica started laying them on the made bed. “So you can pick one to take.” She laid five dresses out and returned to the closet.

  “I don't need a dress. If you remember, this is a mission to find the Anthem and disable it if we can. When am I going to have time to wear something like this?”

  Danica returned with five sets of shoes and placed them with the dress she thought best accompanied them. She stepped back and put her hands on her hips to survey the matches. She switched the shoes on two dresses.

  She turned to Mila. “This is for your date. Now, choose.”

  “What date?” Mila turned red.

  “With Finn.”

  Mila felt the heat on her cheeks and hated the betrayal. “I don't have a date with Finn. We aren’t dating. That’s not a thing.”

  Danica put her hands on Mila's shoulders and looked her in the eyes. “It is a thing. I know it. Penny knows it. Hell, even you know it. Finn doesn't seem to know it, but we can fix that. You deserve to be happy. I remember the douche canoes you used to date, back when you still had time for dating and you weren’t some museum bigshot. Finn is a good man.”

  “Actually, he’s a dwarf.”

  “I think the PC term is ‘little people,’ sweetie.”

  They stared at one another for a beat before they cracked up. Mila wrapped her arms around Danica's waist and hugged her. “I miss the two of us hanging out,” she said, pressing her cheek against Danica's chest.

  “Me too.” Danica kissed the top of her head, then pushed Mila to arms’ length. “But I like how it is now with Finn and Penny too. Those two are good for us. Without them, you wouldn't know I’m an elf, and we would have kept going to our jobs and grown old together. I love you, and I don't want to be the two old ladies who people talk about. I want to be alive and have adventures and, you know, save the world. We have a great life, assassins and all, and I want us to have an even better one. Which is why you’re going on a date with a prince.” She spun Mila around to face the bed. “Now, choose one.”

  “Okay, Mom.”

  Danica slapped her on the ass hard enough to make Mila jump and grab her butt cheek. “Atta boy!” She laughed and skipped to Mila's dresser. “That was for the other night. I don't think you know your own strength when you get a few beers in you.”

  Mila rubbed at her stinging butt cheek as she looked the dresses over. Three of them were black, one was red, and the last was a green one she had bought but never worn. “I have a lot of black clothes.”

  Danica didn't look up from the drawer she was rooting through. “Black looks good on you. I mean, it looks good on everyone, but especially on you.”

  Mila sighed. She would have to fold all those clothes again. “Well, you picked open-toed shoes for these two, so they’re out.”

  “You have cute toes! Why throw out the dress just because of the shoes?”

  “One word. Snow. And I don't want to lose these cute toes to frostbite.” She scanned the selections and pointed at the red dress. “This. The red one.”

  Danica turned. “It’s because I chose boots for that one, isn’t it?”

  “Yup.” Mila picked up the other four and headed toward the closet.

  “How do you not have any sexy underwear?” Danica yanked a second drawer open. She rummaged around and froze. She pulled out a pair and stared before turning to face Mila and hold the offending underwear in front of her. They were a bright yellow bikini brief with a Pikachu face on the crotch.

  “Are you serious?” Danica sounded like she had been stabbed in the back.

  Mila laughed. “Remember Roy?”

  “The lazy slob who spilled chocolate milk on our couch? Yeah. I remember.”

  “He was into Pokémon. I got those as a gift after he went to the Denver Comic-Con. He thought they were sexy.”

  “Holy shit. Your previous choices in men makes me wonder about you.” Danica tossed the briefs into the drawer and pulled out the most impractical lacy G-string ever made and held it up. “It’s like nothing in between. Why do you even have this? It’s like wearing floss that saws at your asshole all day.”

  “Another gift. I put them on for all of ten minutes to show him, then stuffed them in a drawer.”

  “Why didn't you throw them away? Or use them to strangle the guy who bought them?” She tossed them in the wastebasket beside the nightstand.

  “I like to keep it simple, I guess.” Mila shrugged, putting the shoes in their proper places in the closet.

  “You got that right. All I can see in h
ere are cotton bikini briefs and boyshorts. How can you be so fashionable when we go out and so plain underneath? I don't even see any cheekys in here.”

  Mila furrowed her brow. “What are cheekys?”

  Danica turned, eyes wide. “Are you serious? Right. That’s it.” She held her hand up, and the room filled with the scent of winter in a deep forest. A bubble formed in her palm.

  Mila stared in fascination. She had seen Danica do magic before, but only when saving lives, not in their everyday life. She figured Danica was used to holding back since she lived most of her life with a Peabrain that didn't know magic existed. Mila felt sorry that she had stifled her friend all those years, even if she didn't know she’d done it.

  The bubble popped. Danica smiled and marched into the living room. “Put some shoes and socks on. We’re going out.”

  “We can't just leave. Assassins out there, remember?” Still, she grabbed a pair of socks and followed Danica.

  “Don’t worry. No one will see us. I arranged a ride.” She slipped into a pair of kneehigh boots.

  “What ri—” Mila jumped back and yelped.

  A six foot tall bubble materialized in the center of the living room and popped in her face. Hermin stood there, his hands in a fighting pose as he glanced around the room. “Where are they?”

  “Where are who?” Danica zipped her second boot up and stood from the arm of the couch.

  “You said it was an emergency.” He deflated, his cheeks red from adrenaline.

  “It is. We need to go to the mall.”

  Hermin stared, struggling to see if she were joking, and then let out a snort. “You know, I’m busy, right? This ship needs a lot of attention. I don't have time for random shopping trips. What in the four engines could you need so badly it can’t wait?”

  “Sexy underwear, Hermin. Lots of sexy underwear.” She put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “You can help us pick them out.”

  Hermin’s eyes glazed over. “Break time anyway. Let’s go.”