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

Chapter One

"This reminds me of a humorous fable," I observed while eying Snot, the dwarf, with suspicion. "A priest, a shaman, and a soothsayer walked into a tavern. The innkeeper looks up at the three, pauses, and says, 'Is this some kind of joke?'"

The dwarves eyed me in what appeared to be honest befuddlement.

"What I'm trying to say is, you wouldn't be joking me, would you Snot?" I continued the conversation as I meaningfully fingered the hilt of the short saber hanging from my belt.

The squat dwarf (of course all dwarves are short and stout) vigorously shook his head no. So did his six brothers lined up behind him. They were a grimy band. I had arrived before any of them were able to wash off the coal dust after a long day at their small mine. The shaft was located halfway up the hill behind their quaint little cottage.

I hate quaint.

They looked at up at me with what appeared to be a heartfelt faith that I could help them. That was questionable enough. Dwarves and puppy dog eyes do not go together. The little beggars are usually a villainous lot, digging about for whatever their stock specializes in. Those furrowing for precious metals and jewels make up the greediest and least trustful broods.

But these were coal dwarves, looked down upon by their more affluent cousins. Since coal dwarves are not averse to trading the fruits of their labor, they also mingled the most freely with humans.

Still, I felt as if my cronies at the King's Wart Inn were setting me up for a jest. I turned again to the glass coffin containing the pallid, young woman. Her beauty made my chest tighten, a feeling alike to the way a very sweet confectionery can make your teeth ache.

Her skin was as white as her hair was black. The girl's garb matched her features, a black dress with a front that plunged to reveal a white blouse strained by her full breasts. Until now, I would not have believed anyone could have had such an innocent and yet seductive face--open like a child's, but with just a hint of adult sensuousness about her mouth

I turned again to Snot, so named because he seemed always to be suffering from a cold. "I will take the bait. What happened to your Frost Ivory?"

"A wicked witch fed her a poison apple."

"I am out of here," I said with renewed wariness. "That is it. Seven dwarves, a spellbound maiden, and a wicked witch. Do I look to be the fool? Next you will be telling me that...?

I stopped dead in my rebuke. Several bluebirds had swooped in to drop a wreath of heather and violets upon the coffin. At the base of the glass encasement lurked two doe-eyed bunnies, the missus wearing an apron and bonnet. They were wringing their little rabbit paws and forlornly gazing up at the still figure.

It was too much. The husband hare in the straw hat was not quick enough. I dove and caught the rascal before he could dart into the surrounding shrubbery.

"All right, my fine furry fellow. What be this charade? What jest do you play?"

His reply was but a squeak. I shook him once then glanced to see the dwarves staring at me in alarm. I looked back to the rabbit to see it gaping at me in stark terror.

"He, ah, he be just a rabbit, Sir Ferret," Snot weakly protested. "They cannot speak."

"That is private inquisitor," I snapped back by habit, then again considered the rabbit.

"Are you sure it cannot speak?"

"He be just a hare." Snot replied again as if humoring a madman.

"But they are wearing clothing."

"They be cold."

"I knew that," was all I could think of to retort as I sheepishly placed the rabbit back on the ground and made a halfhearted attempt at patting his head. He scampered to the side of his mate, twirled about, gave what would have been the finger if their little paws were more like human hands, and disappeared into the bushes.

I should have shaken the little eyeballs out of its head. Being city born, I was more used to rats than rabbits. And though city rats do not speak, they can carry the nastiest little slivers of whetted iron.

This was maddening. Bards may depict the life of a private inquisitor as a bold quest filled with damsels in distress or bringing scofflaws to justice. But mostly it is finding an errant husband or pursuing some common thief. At worst, it is providing proof of a spouse's unfaithful ways.

"I accept the task," I blurted, surprising myself as much as the dwarves.

I may be slightly vain, but I could not believe my drinking cohorts would go to this length to taunt me. But what was I to make of a child's tale come to life?

I also had to face the fact that my office rent was overdue and since proving that a neighboring fuller was not culpable in the arson of a competitor's warehouse, I was unengaged.

And besides, I hate witches. I am not speaking of the female druids who relish running naked beneath full moons or know the healing powers of herbs and chants. My mother was such as they. I am talking about those who have fallen into the dark ways and associate with ghouls, ghosts, zombies, demons, and their loathsome ilk. I shudder just to think of such apparitions.

I have always felt uncomfortable with shades and the like, even as a child when one of my playmates drowned in a pickle vat. He displayed a nasty disposition and twisted sense of humor that I believed he possessed even in life--which most likely accounted for his not continuing on to wherever spirits are suppose to proceed.

Too many times I was wakened in the dead of night by his cold clammy hands. That was the first time I called upon half-brother Olmsted's talents, well developed even when we were children. My hunchbacked half-brother trapped the malevolent phantasm in the body of a scum trout and we fed it to a particularly sullen neighbor lady who later puked up a bright green discharge. My stepfather would have beaten us both if he had not also loathed the old bat.

"I charge five marks a day, plus mileage and expenses," I told Snot, "plus a ten-mark retainer."

The dwarf turned to his brothers and they formed a huddle. Their mutterings were just loud enough to be heard, but not understood.

"Could this debt be paid through barter?" Snot finally asked. "We be poor coal dwarves and have not the trove of our cousins. But we can tender you a warm winter with all the coal you need."

"Give me a break, Snot," I snorted. "Don't tell me that an occasional emerald or ruby does not come your way while digging beneath these hills for coal. Look, it is not that I cannot use coal this winter, but I have overhead. There are costs keeping an office and help in Duburoake."

The dingy dwarf returned to the huddle.

"We can pay the ten-mark retainer, plus another ten marks towards fare. But after that it must be in coal," Snot said as he again stepped to the front of his comrades.

Some may relish the haggling that goes on in the many markets of Duburoake. I never did. I sighed and nodded my head in agreement. At least I would not freeze this winter.

I walked over to take a closer look at Frost Ivory. She was very comely. And, I thought, what maiden would not be very grateful to the one who saved her from such an enchantment?

The dwarves nervously watched as if they half expected me to break the glass and begin shaking her as I had the rabbit.

"And just what were your relationships to the victim?" I asked, getting back to business.

"We be her friends," peevishly answered a dwarf I had been introduced to as Cranky.

"I pry not for ribald interest." I attempted to delicately broach the subject in the speech dwarves fall into when discussing formal matters, "but to carry out this charge, I must know everything. You are seven males dwelling with a young maiden..."

The dwarf known as Snooze puffed out his chest and pushed the others to the side. "You go too far, ferret."

"That is private inquisitor."

"You go too far, ferret," he repeated as if I had not corrected him.

"Do I, troll?"

"Dwarf," he grunted in irritation.

"Private inquisitor," I reminded him.

We private inquisitors weary quickly of being called ferrets, and I held myself back from smacking him on his pointed little head.

"Our Frost Ivory is as pure as...ah-h-h"

"Driven snow," I volunteered.

"Yes. Do not slur our Frost Ivory," Cranky joined in as he absentmindedly began slapping the handle of his pickax against a knobby, calloused palm. "You speak like a man with a parchment asshole."

"All right, all right. Don't get your dwarfish bowels in such an uproar," I said as I waved my hands in front of me then paused, inclined my head, and scrutinized Cranky for a silent moment. "What in Hades does that mean?"

"What?" Crank warily retorted.

"Talking like a man with a parchment asshole."

"I don't know," he answered in a defensive voice, caught off guard by the sudden shift in conversation.

"What do you mean you do not know?"

"It be something my mater would say."

I sighed. Sometimes even though we all speak Glavendalian, talking to dwarves, elves, munchkins, and dwebs is like conversing in a foreign language.

"Are there any witnesses to this dastardly deed?" I quickly turned the inquiry back to the subject at hand. "How do you know it was a poison apple that induced this and the fruit came from this wicked witch?"

"It had to be the witch, Morganna," piped up one of the dwarves whose name I'd forgotten. "She hates Frost Ivory for her beauty."

"But did any amongst you see this Morganna give the apple to Frost Ivory?"

The dwarves took on a sullen quietness and looked down at their feet.

"Did you save the remnants of this apple?"

Again, sulky silence.

"Did this witch make threats against your Frost Ivory? Just what proof do you have that she was poisoned?"

"You sound just like the constables," the dwarf named Goofy said with bitterness.

"And that be another point. Just what did the Baron's Examiners have to say?"

"That be why we summoned you," Snot said. "They say she be just victim to some languorous malady. They say to call a bloodletter."

"Did you?"

He snorted. "The lecherous leach wanted only to rub her naked body with oils--in private. We sent him on his way with a few bruises for his wages."

"It be plain she suffers no common ailment," Snot continued. "It be two weeks with no nourishment and Frost Ivory remains as if she but laid down an hour ago for a nap.

"Did you summon a soothsayer or wise woman?"

Snot shrugged as if irritated by all the questions. "None will answer our call. They be indisposed when they hear Witch Morganna is involved."

Fantastic. Wait until Osyani hears that not only am I to receive my compensation in coal, I could be antagonizing a powerful and evil witch.

"Where does this Morganna dwell?"

"Above the Mystic Swamp, on the harbor cliff overlooking Green Island," Snot answered. "She lives in what once was a temple for Dorga, Fish-Headed God of Death."

I cringed at the mention of Dorga. I'd had more than one unfortunate run-in with the followers of the carp-headed deity. They are an odious cult, and I was pleased to hear a couple months ago the King had closed down their temples in the capital for seditious acts against the crown--an attempt at sacrificing one of his nieces.