by Mel Odom
“Ah,” another thief said. “That’s why you sometimes see bubbles in the glass. I always wondered about that.”
“Enough about bottles,” Flann growled irritably. “I want to know what you’re doing following us, halfer.”
Wick thought for a moment. “This, uh, is the only road out of town.”
“He’s right there,” one of the thieves said.
“I wasn’t following you,” Wick insisted. “We just happened to be headed in the same direction.”
“In the middle of the night?” Flann narrowed his eyes in suspicion.
“I had to get out of town,” Wick said, thinking quickly.
“Why?”
“I picked the wrong pockets back in the Tavern of Schemes.”
“That’s him!” one of the thieves exclaimed, pointing at Wick.
For a moment, the little Librarian feared that the man was going to say, That’s him! As in, That’s him! The halfer from the Cinder Clouds Islands! But he didn’t.
Instead, the man said, “That’s the halfer who picked Utald’s safe.”
“So you’re a thief, are you?” Flann asked.
Wick shrank back from the sharp edge of the naked blade. “Yes.”
“Were you planning on thieving from us? Is that what you were doing in our camp?”
“I wasn’t in your camp,” Wick said. “I was here. Asleep.”
“You weren’t asleep when we got here.”
“I was. I swear. Right before you got here.”
“You heard us coming?”
Wick nodded. The back of his head squeaked against the snow.
“You didn’t hear us coming,” Flann said. “Hearing you even suggest that makes me want to gut you right now.”
Being gutted wasn’t a pleasant prospect. Several medical and history books in the Vault of All Known Knowledge had pictures of such barbaric procedures. Wick swallowed and gagged on the vile taste at the back of his throat again.
“So how did you really know we were coming?” Flann asked.
“Quarrel told me,” Wick answered.
“Quarrel’s your partner?”
“No,” Wick said, wanting to be as truthful as he knew how. “The cat is my partner.” He pointed up into the tree. “Or I’m her partner. I’m not sure exactly how that works. But I really think she’s supposed to be my aide. She just takes far too many liberties to be a proper aide, though.”
Alysta spat at him from the tree branch and flattened her ears in annoyance.
“The cat?” Flann repeated.
Wick nodded.
“You have a cat for a partner?”
“It wasn’t my idea,” Wick said honestly.
“The cat’s name is Quarrel?”
“No. The cat’s name is Alysta.”
“Then who’s Quarrel? Another partner?”
“No. Quarrel’s a mercenary I met at the Tavern of Schemes. He’s not my partner. You can’t trust him.” Wick had trouble reconciling the young man’s actions in the tavern to save him and his recent betrayal.
“He was out here?”
“Yes.”
Flann waved four of his men into motion. They quickly drew their swords and eased through the brush.
“Do you have any other partners I should know about?” the thief leader asked.
From the tone in the man’s voice, Wick knew he had to be as completely honest as he dared. “I think maybe the donkey can be considered a partner. He talks, too. Not as much as the cat, but he’s stubborn.”
“Talk, do they?” Skepticism wrinkled tight lines through Flann’s face.
Wick nodded.
Flann sighed in disgust. “I’m through talking to you, halfer. You lie every time you open your mouth. Make your peace.”
Wick blinked. “You’re going to kill me?”
Nodding, Flann said, “Don’t worry. I’ll make it quick and painless. We aren’t enemies, after all. You were probably just following along, intending to rob us—which isn’t the smartest thing you could have done. But I can respect that.”
“Why are you going to kill me?”
“I can’t very well have you following us around, now can I?”
“I could promise not to.”
“I wouldn’t believe you.”
“Well, that’s hardly fair. You don’t really know me enough to make that judgment.”
“Fair’s only good in checkers,” Flann said. “And that’s only if you keep both eyes on the board.” He waved a gloved hand. “Now hurry up with it. I can still get a few hours’ sleep.”
You can just kill me and go back to bed? Wick couldn’t believe it.
“Flann,” another thief spoke up, “don’t kill him yet.”
Anger showing on his face, Flann looked at the speaker. “Why not?”
“You weren’t in the Cinder Clouds Islands,” the other man said. He was young and intense. “I was.”
“So?”
“While I was there, some of the goblinkin talked about a halfer they’d caught. A little red-haired halfer. Talked a lot, they said. Like this one. He was supposed to cook for them.”
I’ll never, Wick moaned to himself, live that down. Even if I live through this. It will pursue me forever.
“The dwarves rescued him,” the younger thief went on. “Later, he was at the buried foundry. He was with the dwarves that found the axe we were sent for.”
You were sent for the axe? That interested Wick intensely. Was it just happenstance that the subject of the Battle of Fell’s Keep had arisen that night in Paunsel’s Tavern, or was there something more diabolical afoot? His native curiosity weighed in heavily against his fear.
Flann regarded Wick. “Were you there, halfer?”
For a moment, Wick was torn, not knowing which way was the safest to answer. Saying no in this instance, he believed, while looking at the sword in Flann’s hand, is probably a … dead end. Or a life-altering one at best. He took a deep breath and let it out. No brilliant ideas came to him and he was decidedly disappointed.
“I don’t have all night,” Flann said. “Tell me the truth, and I’ll know it when I hear it—”
Wick had serious reservations about that statement since the thief leader didn’t believe him about the talking cat and donkey.
“—or you’ll never wear a hat again,” Flann finished.
“I was there,” Wick answered. Then he set himself to be as coy as he could. They won’t get any more answers out of me! I’ll die before I tell them anything that will make them think they can kill me immediately.
Without a word, Flann lifted his sword and slammed the hilt against Wick’s forehead with a dull thunk. Blinding pain consumed the little Librarian and he dropped once more back into darkness.
7
Krepner the Goblinkin
The whole world moved as Wick swam up through the cottony darkness. I’m alive!
Of course, that discovery wasn’t as inviting as it might have been if he’d been certain he was out of the hands of the thieves’ guild and had woken up instead in his bed at the Vault of All Known Knowledge. At first, he didn’t move—he was sure of it—but the sensation of moving stayed with him. Nausea wormed through his stomach.
Then he felt rough wood against his hands instead of snow. He also realized that he was no longer wearing his travel cloak. That woke him at once. His writing kit was secreted away in the cloak’s hidden lining.
His journal was missing!
Cracking open an eye, Wick discovered that he was in a ship’s brig. The heavy iron door rested awkwardly in its frame, and rust patches showed inattention. The interior of the brig stank of excrement and vomit. Not at all the kind of place Wick would ever hope to be. Although it had been exciting to “borrow” those places for a time in his reading.
Lantern light glowed on the other side of the iron door.
“Haw, haw, haw!” a deep voice boomed. “I beat ye again, Dolstos!”
“I swears, Krepner, ye’re a-cheatin’! I
know ye are!” The second voice was falsetto and angry.
“Ye can’t prove I’m a-cheatin’,” Krepner said.
“It’s like ye’re a-seein’ me thoughts,” Dolstos protested.
“Just pay up an’ cease yer whinin’.”
“Let’s go again,” Dolstos said. “Double or nothin’.”
“Ye’ll just end up owin’ me double,” Krepner warned. “Can’t say I didn’t warn ye.”
“Ye can’t be lucky forever, an’ if ’n ye’re a-cheatin’ I’m a-gonna catch ye.”
Curious, Wick pulled himself up the iron door and looked around. He was on a ship. The gentle sway of the vessel resting at anchor told him that. The iron door revealed to him that he was down in the ship’s brig. And the stench that even overpowered the stink of the brig, well, that told him he was being held by goblinkin.
Peering out into the brightness of the lantern light, lifting one hand to partially block the rays that seemed to pierce his head, Wick saw a lone goblinkin sitting at an uneven table. He wondered where the second voice had come from.
The goblinkin shook his right hand, stuck out two fingers, roared, “Even!” then chortled with laughter. “Haw, haw, haw! I beat you again! I’m a-tellin’ ye, Dolstos, ye can’t beat me!”
“Cheater!” the falsetto voice screamed. “Dirty, rotten cheater!”
The big goblinkin rocked back and forth as he guffawed. “I tell ye, Dolstos, doin’ guard duty without ye to play with would be mighty borin’. Mighty borin’ indeed.”
“Nobody else will play with ye because ye cheat all the time,” Dolstos accused.
Then Wick saw where the second voice was coming from. At least, he saw where the second voice was supposed to be coming from. He couldn’t believe it. A shiver of fear rattled along his spine.
The goblinkin used his right hand to play the odds and evens game, but he played it against himself. His left hand was dressed up in miniature clothing like another guard and a face had been drawn on it in charcoal. A worn piece of sheep’s wool created a patch of hair on the back of the hand.
When the goblinkin, Krepner, wanted the other player to talk, he flexed the thumb like a lower lip and raised his own voice, then spoke out of the corner of his mouth. As Wick watched, the goblinkin played himself again, and beat the hand puppet once more. Krepner howled with glee and slapped the table with his good hand while his other hand thumped in agony.
“Cheater!” the falsetto voice shrilled. The high-pitched voice filled the brig. “I’m gonna kill you!”
Moving quickly, Krepner drew the long knife at his side and held it against the hand puppet’s wrist, just under the fake lower lip created by his thumb. Where a goblinkin’s neck would be if the hand puppet were another being. “Don’t ye be a-threatenin’ me, Dolstos!” he roared. “Ye knows I can’t stands it!”
The puppet struggled against the knife. Krepner pinned his left hand against the top of the table. A thin line of blood trailed the knife blade.
A new wave of nausea rattled through Wick. He was certain the goblinkin was about to amputate his own hand for talking back to him.
“Don’t.”
The voice surprised Wick. It was even more surprising when he discovered it had come from him. He knew that when the goblinkin’s head swung around and locked on him.
“So,” Krepner said, “ye’re awake. I thought for sure they’d kilt ye.” He kept his knife at the hand puppet’s throat.
“Yes,” Wick said nervously.
“Ye saw him!” The hand puppet squirmed against the knife, trying to get out from under the blade. “Ye saw him a-cheatin’! Tell him ye saw him!”
Krepner glowered at Wick. “Are ye goin’ to accuse me, too?”
“No,” Wick answered. “I didn’t see you cheating.” And I also don’t see how you couldn’t be.
“He was a-cheatin’!” Dolstos yelled.
Losing interest in the shouting match, Krepner leaned back in his chair. He left the hand puppet lying on the table. “I’m here to watch ye, halfer. Don’t give me no trouble an’ ye’ll live until they kills ye.”
Oh, and that’s so comforting, Wick thought, not relaxed at all. “Okay.”
The goblinkin stared at Wick for a long time. Wick stood his ground on the other side of the iron door and looked at everything but Krepner.
“Want to play odds an’ evens?” Krepner asked.
“No.”
“What?” Krepner asked belligerently.
“No. Thank you,” Wick added.
“An’ why not? Do you think I cheat?”
Wick pulled back from the door. “I didn’t say that.”
“Well, ye’d best never—”
“You’re a cheater,” a woman’s voice declared. “You’re cheating Dolstos out of everything.”
“What!”Krepner thundered. He vaulted from his chair and stood with his knife in his hand. The stacks of copper coins on the table behind him (most of them on Krepner’s side and not Dolstos’s) scattered in a tinkling rain.
Wick jerked backward and bumped into the back wall of the brig. “Nothing!” he said anxiously. “I didn’t say anything!”
“I heard ye, halfer.” Krepner strode to the brig. He thrust his knife through the iron bars of the door. “Ye best watch yer unkind tongue, or I’ll have it from yer head, I will.”
“You’re a cheat. I’ll say it again in case you didn’t hear me with those pig-ugly ears.”
Shaking his head, Wick said, “Not me. I didn’t say that.”
The cat lay curled up in the back corner of the brig. Her tail flicked lazily. “I said it,” she announced.
“Ye better tell yer cat to shut her lyin’ mouth, halfer.” Krepner glowered at Wick.
“I can’t,” Wick pleaded. “She doesn’t listen to me.”
“Don’t make me come in there.”
“Why?” the cat demanded. “Do you think we’re afraid of you?”
“Ye should be!”
“Because you cheat Dolstos?” The cat pushed herself up on her forepaws and wrapped her tail around herself. Her eyes glinted mockery. “Dolstos doesn’t even have any arms to defend himself.”
“What are you doing?” Wick demanded of the cat.
“Do you really want to die a slow death in the belly of this rat-infested ship?” Alysta asked.
“All right, halfer, I’ve had me about enough of ye an’ yer blasted cat!” Krepner fumbled for the keys hanging from his hip.
Alysta turned to Wick. “Get ready,” she said.
“Get ready?” Wick stared at the goblinkin, who was easily three times his size.
The cat got on all fours. “Keep your head, Librarian. It’s only one goblinkin. Surely you can handle one goblinkin.”
“No,” Wick said, pretty certain that he couldn’t. “I’m not a fighter. I’m a Librarian.”
The cat spat in disgust. “We’re all fighters when we have to be.”
Not me, Wick thought.
“Just stay away from him,” the cat said. “You’ve seen for yourself that he’s not overly bright.”
He talks to his hand, Wick thought desperately. That’s a sure sign that there’s no mind lingering in that thick skull. How can you reason with a mad goblinkin?
By then, amid curses and threats of bodily harm, Krepner opened and swung wide the heavy iron door. It clanged against the wall.
“I’ll have the tongue from yer head!” the goblinkin roared.
“An’ the tail of the cat as well!” Dolstos shouted in his falsetto voice.
Together, goblinkin and hand-goblinkin charged into the brig.
Krepner reached for Wick with his free hand, intending to grab his hair. Instead, the little Librarian ducked and rolled between the goblinkin’s legs too fast to be caught.
By that time, the cat was in motion, springing from her haunches and launching herself up the goblinkin in a series of lightning-fast jumps that took her up the body of their foe. Then she sat atop his head and started claw
ing and scratching and biting Krepner’s ears and nose.
Wick watched in stunned fascination.
“The keys!” the cat yelled. “Grab the keys!”
Krepner flailed at the cat, barely missing her as she sprinted over his head and shoulders. Her claws dug into fabric and flesh. Off balance, screaming in terror and anger, the goblinkin collided with the rear wall of the brig and the bars.
“Get the keys!”
Galvanized into action, Wick darted forth, swallowing his heart, which was pumping frantically in the back of his throat. His hand closed on the heavy key ring and yanked.
It didn’t come off.
“Get the keys!” the cat yelled. The goblinkin’s efforts to seize her got closer and closer.
In another moment Wick felt certain her foe would have her. Redoubling his efforts, Wick seized the key ring again and yanked with all his strength.
Cloth tore. The keys came away in Wick’s hand, but the goblinkin turned on him at once.
“Ye done made a bad mistake, halfer!” the goblinkin growled. He stepped toward Wick, who shrank back at once. The little Librarian was certain that his life was at an end. He raised his hand before him, hoping to ward off any blows, but knowing that the knife would probably nail his hands to his skull.
Then the goblinkin’s pants, torn loose by Wick’s efforts to claim the keys, fell and tangled around his ankles. He tried to take another step, but he tripped. “I’m gonna—gonna—ullllllppppp!” He crashed to the floor.
“Go!” the cat commanded. “While he’s ullllpppping!” Lithely, she jumped over the fallen goblinkin.
Krepner flailed with his knife and reached for his pants at the same time. He yelled and screamed and cursed.
“Out!” the cat shouted, throwing herself at Wick.
Standing, Wick rushed out the door and threw it closed behind him. He fumbled with the key as Krepner got to his feet and leaped toward the door. The lock engaged with dull, grating clicks.
Krepner reached through the bars with the knife, slashing at Wick. “C’mere, ye terrible little beast! I’ll rip ye to pieces an’ gnaw on yer bones!”
All the more reason to stay away, Wick thought. He was glad he remembered to yank the keys from the lock.