Detective Nicely Strongoak and the Case of the Dead Elf (9 page)

Highbury tried to maintain his air of superiority, but was having some difficulty maintaining his composure with half of my
Necromancer
spilling down his suit. ‘I believe you have had too much to drink, Son of Stone,’ he said from between teeth that were as gritted as elf teeth can grit.

‘Yup, but at least I have a choice about making an ass of myself.’ He didn’t get it. As I thought, Old Blue Eye’s talents did not run to a sense of humour. No surprise there. Name me one good elf comedian and I’ll show you a dragon in loafers. I continued my friendly drunk act because I was enjoying it and he wasn’t. ‘Come on, lighten up, Shrubbery, old boy. Can’t you take a joke? What do you say, let’s be buddies? Forgive and forget. All bones under the troll-bridge.’

Highbury stood up, his perpetual tan now coloured by something more like excessive blood pressure. I swear I could see little wisps of smoke coming off the tips of those pointy ears. ‘The name is Highbury. I have nothing to say to you, dwarf, and I do not forgive or forget anything, and if that is not clear enough for you, in words you may understand: Get out of my face!’

Great parting speech, a pity its delivery was rather spoilt by the fact that he was simultaneously attempting to climb over me to get out from the table. For some reason, certainly beyond my control, this did not prove easy. Then from across the room I heard an unexpected voice: ‘Why, Master Detective, aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?’

I turned to see Mrs Hardwood, carrying one drink in her hand and several more on the inside. With a little forethought I would have realised I stood every chance of crossing her tracks. This type of get-together would be meat and drink for her.

The lady was also wearing white, as befitted the occasion, but half of the dress must already have been donated to charity, judging by how little was left. Mind you, it didn’t matter how white the dress was; she still looked dirty.

‘I am just leaving, Lady Hardwood,’ said Highbury, taking advantage of the interruption to disentangle himself from my legs, but kicking over the table in the process. A lot of people looked on and he coloured an even deeper shade of irate. This was not the way he liked to get attention. He eventually strode off in the direction of the main hall, dignity left somewhere in the Desolate Wastes, while I righted the furniture.

Mrs Hardwood sat opposite, put down her glass and then drank most of mine. ‘Hmm, tasty.’ She had another go. ‘Very tasty. So, who’s that with the cheekbones and the pointy bits?’ she added, conversationally.

‘I’m surprised you don’t know him, Mrs Hardwood. I would have thought there were few influential people who escaped your notice.’

She shrugged a bit, used her little cocktail onion to wipe round her glass and then put it on her tongue. She let it hang there for a while before swallowing it whole. I’ve probably seen more provocative party tricks, but I don’t recall when.

‘It depends what you mean by “influential”, Master Detective. My husband owns as much land and as many industries as a middling-sized kingdom. You know, in days gone by he would have been called a king. Now, in that class, “influential” means a whole different thing.’

I took her point.

‘Well, Mrs Hardwood, the elf with the personality by-pass was Highbury, self-styled leader of the Surf Elves and, if I am reading the runes correctly, potential Citadel Alliance Party Councillor.’

‘His manners could do with some attention.’

‘Don’t mind him. Big problem.’

‘Such as?’

‘Small dick.’

Unfortunately it caught her just as she was taking a sample out of the cocktail. Coughs and fits do not a lady make, but she handled it pretty well. A lot more people did look on, though. ‘And I thought that was you,’ she said, after recovering. ‘The small dick.’

I raised one eyebrow.

‘Hey lady, don’t you know what they say about dwarfs?’

‘I know they say a lot of things about dwarfs, Master Detective.’

‘Could be at least one of them is true.’

She wiped the remains of the cocktail from her face. ‘Like to talk dirty, do you, Master Dick-tective?’

‘Just stating an anatomical fact, lady.’

‘Oh my, the things you can learn on a night out in the Citadel!’ She took out a compact from a small vanity purse, perused her reflection and was not impressed. ‘I had better go and put on my party face. People always expect the best.’ She rose effortlessly. ‘Don’t forget drinks tomorrow. You can talk dirty all you like then.’

The walk to the ladies’ room was a masterpiece of application; an awful lot of work had gone into getting it right and an awful lot of folk of the male persuasion appreciated it; she had this walking business off to a fine art. ‘Petrochemical industries,’ I muttered to her departing back. Dirtiest thing I could think of to say.

Thelen slipped into the vacant seat.

‘Who was the woman, and how come her mother never told her to wear an undervest out in the evenings? It can get chilly even in summer.’

I smiled. ‘That was a client. Name of Mrs Hardwood.’

‘Oh yes,
the
Mrs Hardwood, I’ve heard of her, but have not had the pleasure.’

‘Highbury knew her, but I don’t think he’s had the pleasure either.’

Thelen liked that one.

‘She didn’t admit to knowing him, though, which is interesting, as I think one of them was lying.’

We tried to get back into the swing of things, but the fizz had gone out of the party. We decided to cut our losses and leave. The night was fine and clear and pleasant after the day’s heat. The stars were doing what stars do best and the moon hung like an opal set in jet. We decided to leave the wagon and walk through what are, after all, some of the oldest and most famous landmarks of the Citadel. The Tower of the Guard, the Sepulchre, the Forever Fountain, the Courtyard of the Trees, all laid out before us, floodlit as the tourists never see them. I had liberated a bottle of something sticky from our friendly bar steward and we showed suitable deference to our thousands of years of heritage by waltzing a few times round the Courtyard of the Trees and dipping our pinkies in the Forever Fountain. By the time we had made it down to the Third Level where Thelen was staying, things were humming again. Arm in arm, we passed between the shadows, making no more noise than sneak thieves looking for a dragon’s hoard.

‘I would ask you in, Nicely,’ said Thelen, as we reached her door, ‘but to be honest I am absolutely exhausted.’

‘That’s fine, lady. Why spoil a perfect evening with us getting tangled up in each other’s chain mail?’

She gave me that particular elfin look, the one like an X-ray machine on overdrive. There are lots of strange things about elves, at least to my way of thinking – some good, some not quite so good, or at least not as good as they like to advertise them. That look, though, is particularly unnerving. Elves seem to have the capability of giving you one hundred per cent of their attention – whereas the most other peoples can normally manage is about forty to sixty. For that one moment you are the only thing that seems to matter to them in the whole of Widergard – scary.

‘You are a strange one, Nicely Strongoak,’ Thelen continued. ‘A peculiar mixture, like those cocktails you are so fond of drinking – a dash of this, a measure of that. I do not think you quite know what you want to be.’

We made our goodnights quickly after that and I hurried on my way; too much perception can be dangerous.

It had been an almost perfect evening, some dancing, some romancing and some elf baiting. Not bad at all. The night was still balmy, the stars still alive and, as I searched for a hire wagon, I ticked off the constellations. I recognised the Wizard’s Staff, the Two Princes, the Flying Dragon and the Silver Tree, but I failed completely to spot the Over-Confident Dwarf.

I was heading down a side street when the wagon pulled up. It was big and black. At first I thought I had found my ride and I leaned into the cab, only to find myself facing a shooter. The bouquet of steel and machine oil brought me round like smelling salts.

‘The chief wants to see you.’

I stared down a barrel as big as a drainpipe, at a face fit only for scaring children.

‘Tell him to make an appointment.’

‘He did, it’s for now. You’re late, get in.’

The grunt with the shooter motioned me into the back and I sat sandwiched between his compatriots, watching quietly as the lower levels of the Hill slipped by. My two muscle-bound bookends were the usual mixed-bloods, hoodlums very much of the third division; three-ring boxers and wrestlers, slightly past their prime. The armed one, he was different, he was the real thing. Big and broad, he wore gloves to save him skinning his knuckles on the cobblestones, a pure-blooded goblin of the old school. The three of them did not have the charm of a paper bag, but what they lacked in pedigree and refinement they more than made up for in height and width – probably all that free school milk again. They were certainly too many for me, so I sank back into the softness of the seat.

We passed over the Dwarfs’ Dike, the outer boundary of the original Citadel proper, and slipped through the suburbs as silent as wraiths. Soon we were heading out towards the docks.

As we hit the Bay area they slipped a mask on me. I had one last quick look round before the bag was put over my head, but I didn’t really recognise anywhere and the rest of the journey passed in blackness. After what seemed an age, the wagon finally stopped and they pulled me none too smoothly out. I took a deep breath. The smell of salt, industrial plant and sealeaf was a distinct improvement from the atmosphere in the wagon; goblins and personal hygiene travel in separate stagecoaches. It was a smell I could recognise again. These goblins didn’t know their dwarfs.

They shook me down, relieved me of my wallet and shield and then pushed me up some stairs, helping me catch my shin on the metal as I went. I owed somebody for that. Next: into a room, through another door, into another room, which felt heated even at this time of the year, then a new voice.

‘All right, lads, you can take off his blindfold.’

I blinked a few times. I seemed to be in some sort of office. The walls were covered with charts and cheap calendars from engineering concerns, featuring pneumatically improved women and seeking to sell pneumatic tyres; shredded paperwork was strewn over the floor. A large antique desk with a finely polished surface dominated the room, and the desk was dominated by a large seated goblin.

His was not a type I had familiarity with; some kind of grunt, I supposed. He was fat, but there was no mistaking the muscle beneath. Even his huge head had rolls of fat congregating at the collar beneath lank hair the colour of steel, soaked in skull-oil and parted down the centre in a line; axe sharp. Massive shoulders came with equally impressive arms, displayed beyond rolled shirtsleeves. His chest was barely contained by a check waistcoat that would have given Gaspar nightmares for a month and he carried a watch chain that might once have held a ship’s anchor. As ugly as a voluntary violation of the marriage bed, his face hinted at knife work, both of the reformational and bar-room variety: the slant eyes were regulation, but if he was born with that nose then I am a pixie’s poorboy. It was the teeth that were the real give-away. I have yet to see a goblin with a full set. Normally, they are rotten, brown, cracked and stained and big – the sort that makes a dental hygienist wake up early in the morning with the icy sweats. These, though, were white and gleaming, with square, neat incisors and, when he smiled, instead of fangs I spotted neatly pointed canines. A lot of work had gone on in there; I just pitied whoever had been paid to do it. Nobody should need money that bad.

He puffed on a large leaf-stick and blew a smoke ring. ‘I take it he’s clean.’

‘As an elf queen’s undies, boss,’ replied the driver, throwing my wallet and shield on the desk. ‘Not that he could hide anything in a suit like that.’

The big grunt chortled. I think he was still getting the hang of the teeth, as small drops of saliva formed at the corners of his slit-like mouth every time he spoke.

‘Don’t listen to him, dwarf. The suit is fine.’

‘From you I should take that as a compliment?’ I said, opening my innings.

‘What’s the matter, don’t ya like checks?’

‘Only the sort with my name on and somebody else’s seal at the bottom.’

The new teeth went for another outing that I now guessed was really some form of smile. ‘I can see you and me is going to get on fine,’ he spat.

‘Uh huh,’ said Master Noncommittal Detective, ‘look, I’m all for integration and I have my wagon serviced by the best grease goblin in the Citadel, who is as hard working as they come, but let’s face it, there is not exactly a history of great love between our two folks.’

‘Well flog my ring, and call me a lordling, but I do believe the Master Detective is jumping to a seriously wrong conclusion.’ He got up on thick bandy legs, came round to where I was still standing and loomed over me – he was definitely a good loomer. Me? I was an indifferent loom-ee, so I shrugged instead.

‘See that sign, Short Stuff?’ he continued, gesturing behind his desk. I looked up at what appeared to be some form of diploma, taking pride of place amongst the girly calendars. ‘That is a Certificate of Racial Purity.’ When this didn’t cause the anticipated response he went on: ‘It states that for the last seven generations – two more, I hasten to add, than is legally required – my ancestors have been traced as unsullied, impeccably pure men.’

‘Men?’

‘Men. You take my point.’ How could I miss it? It was about three hands long, made from finest steel and held directly at my throat.

He continued: ‘It’s just that I happen to come from a pretty ugly family, which is not a crime even under elf law. I was the youngest of eighteen children and was therefore both a burden and a joy to my mother – may her bones never be dug up for soup. You following this, dwarf?’

I nodded very slightly. Which, considering the position of the knife, was the wisest choice.

My captor continued: ‘So, since I was so much more attractive than my brothers and sisters, you know what she called me, dwarf?’

‘No – man.’

‘She called me Petal. You find that funny, Dwarf?’

‘Uh, huh.’

‘No?’

‘No. I really don’t find it funny,’ I insisted. Petal took the knife from my throat and went back to his desk, examining my shield. ‘Nicely Strongoak. Master Detective Nicely Strongoak. Maybe with a handle like that, Petal don’t seem too funny after all.’

The ex-goblin and newly, at least to me, reclassified ‘man’ let himself down on a suitably reinforced office chair.

‘So sit!’ he directed.

I sat. He continued examining my credentials. ‘Shield-for-Hire. Bit of an old-fashioned sound in this day and age, don’t yer think? Shield-for-Hire – guess it’s an honourable profession – all the way back to the days when there was always some poor village full of us poor folk, needing protecting from, oh goblins, or even worse.’ He looked across the desk at me, but I didn’t bat an eyelid. Petal proceeded to clean his nails with the knife. ‘Well, it’s not the good old days now, Master Shield-for-Hire, times change, they get more complicated and sometimes the little folk do not really know what is good for them.’

‘I don’t think there is much new about that particular argument.’

‘Meaning what?’

‘Meaning that there’s always been people around who think they can make other people’s decisions, better than they can make them for themselves, that is.’

‘That’s what all this democracy business is about, ain’t it, dwarf? Getting someone else to make your decisions for you.’

‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but I seem to remember that there was supposed to be some voting process involved, something about little crosses on a piece of parchment.’

‘So, they vote to hand over their thinking to someone else. I’m saving them the problem of one more decision – sort of cutting out the middle man.’ Petal gestured wildly with the knife and then – almost quicker than I could follow – it was in the air and heading for my head. I swear I heard the very air itself part, as it zipped past my left ear, and embedded itself into the door.

I did not so much as flinch – probably because it had all been too quick.

‘Can’t stand those damned blood-sucking, flying parasites!’ Petal continued nonchalantly, opening the top drawer of his desk, taking out a knife that was the twin of the one he had just thrown.

‘Now where were we?’ he continued, attending to his manicure again.

‘You were telling me about your interest in helping others shoulder some of the burden of civic responsibilities?’

‘Oh yeah …’

‘Does that include persuasion with sharp pointy things?’

The goblin shrugged massive shoulders. ‘Just underlining the point.’

‘What about innocent bystanders?’

‘Master Detective, Widergard is full of innocent bystanders. We’ve got plenty enough.’

‘No, I still have the feeling you have missed a vital aspect of the democracy business.’

‘Well, isn’t that the marvellous thing about our free society, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, even those amongst us who make it their business to interfere in other citizens’ business.’

‘Meaning?’

He picked up my wallet and shield and threw them across the desk. ‘Meaning that one dwarf detective has been poking his nose far too far into matters which are none of his business.’

‘What if I make them my business?’ I said, bending to pick up my shield.

‘Then your business goes out of business.’ With that he stabbed his current knife, hard and fast, at the desk, sending the point deep into the surface, just a hand away from my face. I straightened up slowly and looked him in his squint eyes. ‘Now look what you went and made me go and do,’ he said, speaking very slowly. ‘I went and ruined my desk. And I care about this desk, so just think what I could do to you, ’cos I don’t care a pixie’s fart about you.’ He eyed the damaged top with what looked like genuine regret. ‘Take the great detective away and give him something to help him remember us, lads. Hurt him, but don’t spoil his looks too much.’

I turned quickly, but the three bruisers from the wagon were already there. I struggled because that sort of thing is expected from a tough guy like myself. Eventually, they marched me across the room. As they bundled me through the door, I caught sight of the embedded knife and a red smear that had been some particularly nasty flying insect. They slipped on the hood again, which was probably good news, as it indicated that I was not so likely to have an early introduction to the Bay marine life. We drove a short distance, and then I was dragged out again. A blow to the gut caught me unawares. I doubled up, gasping for breath on the floor, and as I breathed in something was pushed into the hood and I was coughing and spluttering in the dark. There was a tingle in my nose and throat: a smell of ice, a frozen lake on a winter’s night. By the time recognition sank in and I scrambled at the hood it was too late; they had powdered me with Moondust.

Moondust is a narcotic, and as such is off-limits to all of Widergard; unless you are an elf. The story goes that what is for them a mild stimulant, enhancing certain ‘creative’ faculties, is, for the general population, the ultimate good-time party powder. That is unless it’s taken in large doses, when it just kills the brain, leaving the body to fend for itself. If the gnome’s pipeleaf leads to a mellow glow, then Moondust is a strobe light in the skull. The wormheads – those cobblestone stimulant enthusiasts with skulls full of flying dragons, just love it, which is why it is illegal. Dwarfs don’t touch it; we get to the party just as the lights are going out.

I fumbled at the hood with fingers the size of a dragon’s talons and managed to make a little light, but it was at the end of a long, long corridor full of folk, laughing and singing. Men, elves, Tree-friends and even a few casual-suited wizards were having the time of their lives. For some reason they didn’t want me to get to the door. There were arms and legs everywhere, but they were only mine, and they didn’t work, and I wasn’t going anywhere anyway and then the party was over.

I got to the office early. More exactly, I was dumped unceremoniously in the Two Fingers’ reception early. I think it was Petal’s way of saying: ‘We know where you live.’ Old Jakes found me there, woke me up, or tried to, and then helped me into the lift and eventually onto the office bedroll.

I tried to say a thank you, but I have a feeling I simply delivered the recipe for my mother’s famous beetroot and boggle stew. It’s a fabulous dish but you have to have really fresh boggle; however, I got the feeling that Jakes wasn’t that interested and then I passed out again.

It was really late, nearly midwatch, by the time I woke up, but I wasn’t going to beat myself up about it – not when everybody else seemed to be getting into a queue to do the job. Mindless violence is all very well for taking an opponent out – he may not be able to run far with a broken leg, after all – but he can still think. I couldn’t move and also could barely remember my name.

Goblins are not just mindless thugs. There is always room at the cooking cauldron for one or two like Petal, the kind with the extra brain space necessary for organising things. The seriousness of his warning was clear, but as to what he was warning me away from, I didn’t really have that much of a clue; certainly not in my current state.

I splashed water on my face but didn’t feel much better. I tried drinking some water and that didn’t help either. I was considering my other water-related options when I remembered the Tree-friend’s gravy that I had left in my drawer yesterday, or a million years ago, as it was now called. I went for it like a hungry baby to the teat and the rewards were just as immediate. My brain played join-up-the-dots with the departments in charge of legs, arms and feet, fired them up into activity and I felt new life flow into my veins. Ha, foiled you, Petal. Invulnerable Wonder Dwarf was back.