Jak Barley-Private Inquisitor and the Case of the Seven Dwarves (4 page)

"It be Reverian Assassins," someone in the fleeing throng cried, to send others wildly joining flight. In but an instance the entire chamber was empty except for our table.

"Now look what you have done," Jennair said in what was to have been a jesting voice, but quavered nonetheless.

"I guess it is too late to try and lose ourselves in the crowd," I finally said to break the silence.

At least the assassin's hammering had stopped.

"The back door," shouted Sergey, who leaped to his feet. "I must bolt it."

He quickly made his way about the overturned tables and chairs and disappeared into the narrow hallway.

"I wish he had not done that," I tried to calmly observe. "In those frightful melodramas performed by journeying troupes, the actors are unceasingly and painfully slain one-by-one because they will not remain together."

It was then a faint rap could be heard from the other side of the front door. The polite knocking was repeated when there was no answer.

"What? You think I will let you enter just because you are now mannerly?" I shouted.

"It was a thought," said a muffled voice that was strangely familiar.

"Next you will be telling me you only want but a beer."

"A light ale would be nice."

I sniggered then observed, "You do not have a Reverian accent."

"That's because I'm not Reverian."

That accent! It could not be.

"Lorenzo?"

"Jak?"

I quickly threw back the bolt and latch.

"Jak, what are you doing?" yelled Sergey in alarm as he returned from locking the back entrance.

But it was no trick. There stood Lorenzo Spasm, the mysterious traveler who had saved my life more than once in Stagsford. I threw my arms around him in relief and joy then began anxiously pulling him inside the tavern.

"Quickly, Lorenzo, there be assassins about who mean me harm."

"You don't mean those thugs, do you?" Lorenzo asked as he motioned with his head to three cloaked figures sprawled in the gutter. "I hope they weren't the door greeters because they were an exceedingly insolent bunch. Kept trying to stick me with their knives."

"They are..." I tried to force out the words.

"Dead? Sorry, I hope they weren't friends of yours."

"You just killed three Reverian Assassins."

"Hey, I said I'm sorry, but they were so damned persistent. One was more irate than the others. It looked as if someone had gone after his nose with a pair of pliers. Say, what does a guy have to do around here to get a drink?" Lorenzo asked as he strode past me and looked behind the empty bar, and then about the equally empty room. "This place is sure dead tonight. Where is everybody?"

Olmsted and Jennair interrupted his questions to embrace him as I had but moments before. He gave my brother a bear hug and kissed Jennair on her reddening cheek. Sergey watched in bewilderment, though I had related my exploits with this mysterious traveler to him upon my return. Sergey even wrote of them in his journal.

Lorenzo had not changed since I last saw him in Stagsford while I recovered from injuries inflicted by the followers of Dorga.

There is nothing exceptional in Lorenzo's visage, but a shrewdness lurks behind Lorenzo's brown eyes that belies his casual demeanor. He is tall and lanky. His black hair, with traces of gray, hangs to his shoulders. A graying mustache falls almost past his chin.

I had tried guessing his origins when we first met through his facial features, but it was impossible. His narrow nose could be Gevonish, but the brow and cleft chin were more that of the Brisbon sea folk. His high cheekbones and brown eyes suggested elfin blood. And as before, he was wearing a mishmash of clothing from a number of provinces and nations--some recognizable, others not.

Despite the outlandishness of Lorenzo's explanation dealing with his origins, I had come to believe him. As a professor at my private inquisitor academy once said, "When all that is probable has been ruled out, then only an improbable solution remains."

There are many worlds that exist side by side, divided by intangible curtains that can sometimes be parted with the right knowledge, Lorenzo had explained to me. Some of these worlds are very different and others amazingly similar.

"Parallel firmaments," exclaimed Olmsted when he first learned of Lorenzo's claim. "Fjsten, a great metaphysician, has hypothesized such manifestations."

"Where is everybody?" Lorenzo asked again.

"They fled when they heard of the Reverian Assassins. It is now just us," I answered.

"Cool," Lorenzo answered in his puzzling dialect. He easily swung his legs over the bar and dropped behind it to begin digging through the shelves. He stood and held up a bottle of Duburoake Star Ale to a lamp for inspection. It must have met his satisfaction because he plucked the cork out with his teeth and spat it to the floor then tilted his head back and took a long draw.

"If we only had music," Lorenzo said as he came back around the bar with several bottles of the brew tucked under his arm.

"Are you sure they be dead?" It was the fiddle player, sticking his head out from the kitchen door. Behind him was the rest of the band. "We were hiding in the water closet, but there are these strange bugs crawling about. I thought I heard someone say the Reverian Assassins are dead."

For the rest of the night during our reunion we had all the spirits we wanted, plus music. It does not get any better than that.

I lay bewildered just after waking. My head hurt, but that was not unusual for a Saturn morning. The late morning light was coming through the small hexagonal window above my cot. I have a sleeping room off my third-floor office I use when I remain out late. It comes in handy since Madam Gebob gets very irate when one of her boarders wakes her in the middle of the night. She also allows no overnight women guests at her lodging.

I was attempting to recall whatever was nagging at the back of my mind. Then last night's misadventures came back in a rush. I lurched to my feet, which in turn set off a searing surge of agony behind my eyeballs. What the Reverian Assassins had failed to accomplish, I had almost done with a voluminous amount of Duburoake Star Ale.

Reverian Assassins! What was that all about? Who would want me dead so badly they would spend a fortune to have it accomplished? The enemies I acquire through my line of work are the miserly kind who would hire some mulish wharf brigand to do the job.

Word of three dead Reverian Assassins would have spread by now to all parts of Duburoake. If the person behind the attack lived in the city, he or she would surely have heard of their henchmen's demise. Which meant, I uncomfortably surmised, there would probably be another try.

I tottered to the window and grimaced at the bright daylight. Through squinted eyes I surveyed the street below me. There was Hebron, the kettle mender and knife sharpener. He was one of the few non-Frajans to remain in the neighborhood. I attributed that to his unmatched ability to not comprehend the most direct insult.

Two unwashed street urchins were trying to distract a pieman while a third was sneaking up on the cart to snatch pastries. A wagon filled with coal rattled across the cobblestones.

Coal...the dwarves...Frost Ivory... Each thought was swiftly followed by the next until they ended with Morganna, the evil witch. If she was moneyed enough to acquire an entire temple, the witch might be able to afford the assassins. But how could she have so quickly procured the exotic executioners when I was but retained by the dwarves yesterday afternoon? By magic?

I shook my head in an attempt to clear my thoughts but only succeeded in reigniting the pain.

There was a rap on my door. I softly stepped to the door and was about to put my eye to the peephole when the image of an assassin plunging a needle dirk through the opening gave me pause. I was quickly looking around for my side blade when Osyani's voice asked if I was awake. I willed myself to look through the peephole and saw that it was Osyani with a streaming cup of tea. Behind her stood Lorenzo.

"Whoa, you look as if you've been dragged behind Hazel," Lorenzo observed after I opened the door. "You better shut your eyelids before you bleed to death."

I attempted my nastiest scowl as I took the tea and walked to the desk, there to collapse in my chair. Behind me was a stained-glass oval window depicting the slaying of Dragon Gorgli. Long ago the room had been a study for a well-to-do merchant and the window was now the pride of my office.

I motioned for them to be seated. Lorenzo instead approached the desk and emptied a leather pouch. Along with a large number of coins, some of them gold, fell a pair of brass knuckles, several keys, a glass blue eye, garroting cord, set of lock picks, small folding blade, a glass vial of bluish liquid, a dozen yellowed teeth strung on a gold wire, and a variety of parchments.

"Been pilfering through your mother's purse again for change? Where be her poison darts?" I drily asked as I eyed what must be the pocket contents of the three Reverian Assassins.

He shook the bag once more and out fell two small darts.

I reached across and picked up one of the parchments. It was a border pass made out for a trader. The assassins must have traveled in disguise until attempting my murder. Another foolscap bore strange scribblings. One by one I unfolded the remaining parchments to find additional border passes, what appeared to be a shopping list, and an unflattering sketched likeness of me.

"I am surprised they could recognize me from this," I said, while holding it to window light. "The eyes are too closely set and the chin too weak."

"Funny, I thought the drawing was an exact likeness," Lorenzo observed as he took a seat. "It appears the trio was well prepared for this venture. Someone went to a great deal of trouble to see you dead."

"Or they were already in Duburoake for another job and after completing it, were hired to kill me," I offered.

"Unlikely. I spent the morning sniffing about. There is no talk on the streets of any mysterious deaths other than those of the assassins. And the inns and taverns are a buzz with that."

"This is odd," I changed the subject as I held up the glass eye. The craftsmanship was so excellent I almost expected it to blink.

I rose from my chair and walked to the chest of drawers upon which perched a stuffed two-headed fire shrew and a pile of disorderly parchments waiting to be filed. Osyani was making headway in straightening my cluttered office, but there was a ways to go. After searching several of the drawers, I pulled out what appeared to be a perfect twin to the orb from the assassins' belongings. I had bought the eye on impulse in the markets of Kaiserhelm on my trip to Stagsford.

Kaiserhelm is not an agreeable borough. It squats at the knees of the Megaoulas Mountains like a skinless, bleeding toad and grows fat on the caravans that come and go through the only tolerable pass for 70 miles. The whole village, from the cobbled streets to the squalid houses, temples, and warehouses, are made of bricks from the surrounding red clays of the foothills. Constant rains keep Kaiserhelm glistening like the raw skin under a broken blister and wash down sluggish streams of odorous, scarlet water that ooze across the streets like the spilled blood of some murdered giant.

The villainous innkeepers and peddlers are well versed in fleecing the pilgrims who excitedly anticipate crossing the mountains for their first views of the fabled wonders of East Glavendale and to gawk at the royal city of Stagsford and its abominable temples.

I had stopped at a ramshackle hut that sold an assortment of cosmetic aids for those injured in battle. Wax ears of a variety of sizes and hues laid in a long row. I paused to examine a cleverly fabricated dwarf ear and observed that its artfully projecting inner hairs were boar bristles. There were also noses of many shapes, carved from wood, ivory, and pink quartz--as well as cast silver for the jauntier of casualties.