Poltro pulled out the vials in victory, holding them up in the lurid light of Belladonna’s hut. “Yes! I still have them!”
“What are they?” Argabella asked.
“They are not to be taken rectally! But I’ve kind of forgotten otherwise. They’re labeled, though, even if the instructions are kind of smeared like sad clown makeup. I think I can still make out the names. Let’s see. Invisibility. Sleeping. Healing. Oh! That might have come in handy earlier…if I’d been awake, maybe I could have saved him.”
She could have saved him.
But she hadn’t been quick enough.
Or tough enough.
Now she’d never get a chance to make Lord Toby proud. If only she’d been able to get that farm boy’s heart, beating or not. If only she’d been a slippery enough rogue to steal Grinda’s magic wand. If only she’d been able to smash Staph the pixie like a flying roach. The whole quest just seemed so silly now. What was the point of questing if everyone was going to die anyway?
If only. If only. If only.
Poltro had difficulty remembering much after that. Time slipped through her thoughts like lubra eels, and happenings were like blurry paintings ruined by splotches of someone’s yakked-up lunch. There was some rain outside the hut, a rolling sort of meadow under gloomy skies with a lonesome red barn that reminded her of the farms in Borix, and they kept calling it the Grange. She was pretty sure they buried something there. Someone got paid some coins for helping them. And then they walked for a long time. Going to the lake. No—to the capital. To Songlen, capital on the lake!
“Enough of this,” someone said, and Poltro gasped as someone threw water in her face. It was the older lady who looked younger and was moving a great deal more than she had previously. The sand witch, unfrozen! And very annoyed, judging by the smeary lines of her face.
“Hey!” Poltro protested. “That was…wet.” Perhaps, she thought, that wasn’t the brightest thing she’d ever said.
“You’ve been in shock for a long time now. We need you to be present before we go into town.”
“Shock?”
“Over the Dark Lord’s death, yes. Let’s talk about it. What are you going to miss about him?”
“Miss about the Dark Lord?” Poltro felt tears welling in her eyes. “Cor. His stupid scraggly wanna-be beard. His obsession with artisanal crackers and cheese. Those grand luncheons with the invigorated ham jam!”
There was more, much more, both good and bad, but as she listed those things and wept, she let them go. The others listened, sniffling a bit themselves. Whenever Poltro faltered, Grinda grimly urged her on. Poltro felt as if her heart were a particularly infected wound and the older woman was squeezing it to get all the pus out. It hurt, but something about it felt good, too.
“And his peculiar compulsion to be a Dark Lord. Cor, what a thought! Lord Toby was good at organizing a dinner party for two, but he was terrible at bringing people together. Especially hedgehogs and turtles, but I imagine taxpayers and unions would’ve been a bit beyond his ken. D’you think he just woke up one day and said, ‘I want to be a Dark Lord’? Such folly!” She laughed until she cried again, then cried until she laughed. At last, there was nothing left but a few chuckling hiccups.
When she was finished, she looked up and saw the world with new eyes. Tiny details stood out: the leaves drifting to the ground, birds pecking at peckish things, and Gustave munching disconsolately on some grass nearby, supremely bored.
“That’s right, Curry Kid,” Poltro said, licking her lips. “Fatten up for me.”
Gustave’s head jerked up and around to regard her, and he spat out a mouthful of grass. “Hey! You’re back to your old murderous hungry self! That’s great. Now stay away from me.”
Poltro would see to him later. Time would only serve to make him more succulent. Time stewing in the pot, that is. “What are we doing now?” she asked.
“We’re after Løcher and Staph the pixie,” Grinda reminded her. “Løcher is quite an accomplished wizard, mind you, and the grounds of his estate are protected. There’s someone who knows how to get through the security, but she’ll want something in return. And to find out where she is, we have to visit a rather unsavory halfling.”
“Does that mean he’s sweet? Isn’t sweet the opposite of savory?”
“No, it means that he’s a rogue and smells bad.”
“So he’s kind of like me at this point.”
“No. Well, yes. Look, Poltro, just let me do the talking. After we all clean up and get something good to eat.”
The prospect of comfort plus comfort food cheered Poltro considerable much as they approached the gate to Songlen. She would comfortably revel in comfort like a fluffy white kitten rolling around in comfy marshmallows.
The guards, having seen it all—for most everything comes to the capital—waved them through without even making obvious comments about Fia’s stature or Argabella’s rabbit ears.
“That goat looks like he would cook up pretty nice,” one remarked, and Poltro grinned at him.
“I know, right?”
Gustave bleated in dismay and edged closer to Fia.
Grinda led them to a fine inn in the Highwaist District, where she apparently had favors owed her. The sign proclaimed it the Grand Balzac, and the wrinkled Balzac himself hastened to show them to fine rooms and have baths drawn for them and inquired what they would like from the kitchen.
An hour later, clean and refreshed, Poltro joined the party downstairs for an exquisite supper replete with a generous appetizer of candied nuts, the house specialty. Lord Toby’s influence had informed her gourmet palate, and she indulged it in his honor. She had blistered pheasant cheeks on bourbon waffles with assorted bison bits and a light arugula medley on the side. Argabella enjoyed a homespun roasted artichoke pizza on gluten supernova dough. Fia wolfed down an entire cornucopia of heirloom squashes and mung bean sprouts in a rustic soy butter reduction and quaffed a tankard of elderberry mead. Grinda had a flash-seared monkfish filet in a scraped hazelnut roux topped with a tart lime sea sponge, and Gustave ordered Balzac’s sweaty shoes flash-fried in beer batter and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar.
Fortified and feeling saucy, the cobbled streets of Songlen lit by whale oil lamps, they set out to rendezvous with Grinda’s contact, one Humbert Beadlebone of the Cheapmeat Beadlebones, a halfling who made his living in the Sadbra District by knowing more than anyone else about things he shouldn’t know. As expected, Beadlebone sat alone on the back stoop of a liquor merchant, a single duck-fat lantern on a round table providing illumination. A pipe and pint also sat on the table, ready to be enjoyed later. Everything, of course, was halfling size, made to fit the fingers and lips of a creep about the size of an eight-year-old child.
No, Poltro didn’t trust this halfling at all. His friendly grin sandwiched between two mutton chops engulfing the sides of his face was surely a ruse to draw them in. He had olive skin like hers, carried an artisan-crafted leather bag, and appeared to be completely unconcerned that he was flaunting his wealth in a district known for pickpockets and footpads. A gold medallion gleamed on his hairy chest, spied through a loosely tied poet’s shirt and an unbuttoned paisley waistcoat. The medallion testified to his membership in the Dastardly Rogues Under Bigly-Wicke, the infamous and widely feared halfling criminal organization that had its chubby fingers in most everyone’s pies. It was probably all the protection he needed. There were two kinds of halflings in Poltro’s experience: the kind that would trick you to rob you and the kind that would trick you to kill you and then rob you, and all of them either wore that medallion or owed favors to someone who did.
Grinda had no obvious reservations, however. She slapped a fake smile on her face to match Humbert’s and greeted him like an old friend you’ve secretly hated for a long time. He held out his palm and she pressed a single coin into it. He f
rowned at the profound lack of jingling.
“That’s it?” he said, his voice an aggrieved tenor with a pronounced northern accent.
“Simple question gets a simple coin, Humbert. I need to know where I can find Mathilde tonight.”
“Mathilde?” His eyes flicked among the party before him with frank curiosity. “Hmm. A fighter, a bard, and a rogue. Going questing, are we? What’s the goat for? Dinner?”
“I’m for witty banter,” Gustave said. “Now answer the question. We’re on a schedule.”
The halfling chuckled and rolled the coin along the top of his knuckles.
“You don’t see a talking goat every day. Tell me about your friends,” he said to Grinda.
“Give me the coin back if we’re going to barter.”
The halfling looked pained. “It’s just an introduction. You know I can find out who they are anyway.”
“Then go ahead and find out, Humbert. I’ve paid you, and generously, too, for what is probably common knowledge in town, so tell me where to find Mathilde tonight.”
He grimaced. “I’ve heard she’s in Fraidhem this week, in the alley behind Testy Tom’s Blue Orb Room.”
“Thanks.”
“Need anything else? Magic rings? A thing that does stuff? Hey. I don’t suppose any of you folks could use some flesh honey?”
In response, Argabella abruptly vomited on him. Loudly. Violently. Chunks of roasted artichoke and pizza dough soaked in stomach acid sprayed him down in a high-pressure geyser, and he recoiled, howling in horror.
“Sorry, sir,” Argabella quavered, wiping off her twitching whiskers with a furred hand. “I have a bad reaction whenever anybody says that.”
“What’s your name?” he demanded, all his friendly demeanor dissolved as a sodden artichoke chunk slipped off his nose and splatted on his lap. “Tell me your name!”
“No. Don’t,” Grinda said, warning Argabella. “Let’s just go. She apologized, Humbert, and it wasn’t on purpose. Just an accident.”
“Oh, no,” Humbert said, shaking his head and sending bits of dough flying from his hair. “One does not simply vomit on a halfling and walk away. That would set a disgusting precedent.” He rose to his feet and pointed a stubby finger at the bard, her stomach contents dripping off him as he moved. “You’re going to pay one way or another. Pay quite a lot or be made an example of.”
He was so focused on Argabella and everyone else was so focused on him that they were all quite surprised when Fia swept her sword diagonally down from the point where his head met his neck and continued to the opposite side, underneath his arm, causing his head and shoulder to slide off from the rest of his body. His heart squeezed once more in surprise, showering them all with blood, and then Humbert Beadlebone’s bones fell over dead.
“Cor, I just took a bath,” Poltro complained. But the sand witch didn’t think that was very significant.
“Are you mad?” she yelled at Fia. “You practically halved a halfling!”
“He threatened our bunny,” Fia explained. “And don’t worry; nobody saw us.”
“That doesn’t matter! They’ll find out. They always do.”
“So what?” Fia wiped off her sword on Beadlebone’s trousers and sheathed it. “I don’t get it. Why is everybody in the west so afraid of halflings? They’re easier to chop up than most.”
“Ugh, I forgot you’re from the far east,” Grinda said. “He was a drub—a Dastardly Rogue Under Bigly-Wicke.”
“What?”
“A member of the halfling mob. You can always tell by the medallions they wear.”
“Oh! That’s what they mean? That’s what that one creep must have meant by a consortium.”
“What creep?”
“Probably a friend of Beadlebone’s here. I owe him forty percent of whatever I got out of the tower. But he can’t have even one percent of Argabella.”
“We’ll have to worry about it later. Let’s just get to Fraidhem. And let me take care of this.” Grinda took out her wand, said “Klainoz emetikos!” and wicked away the blood from their clothes and skin.
They tried to hurry away without precisely looking like they were hurrying, all the while worrying. Or at least Poltro was worried. She knew very well that it was not wise to cross the halflings, and she fretted about the possible consequences all the way from Sadbra through Skidmark and St. Codpiece to an alley behind Testy Tom’s.
It smelled of repressed desire and unwanted potatoes. A single lamppost burned the midnight whale oil, a nimbus of yellow-orange light settling over wooden crates and piles of refuse. Their footsteps clacked and echoed off the stone walls of the buildings on either side.
“Mathilde?” Grinda called, but Poltro didn’t see anyone in the alley at all. “Mathilde? It’s your old friend, Grinda the Sand Witch.”
“Grinda?” a tiny voice squeaked, and the stacks of crates underneath the lamppost wobbled and made a peculiar scratching sound. Poltro drew her dagger, expecting some sort of vile, terrible-clawed, chicken-based monster. The boxes shuddered, and that monster proved to be a tiny adorable primate that topped the crates and perched there under the lamplight.
“Oh, look! It’s a monkey!” Poltro said, her face splitting into an unreserved grin. She loved monkeys.
“I am not a monkey!” Mathilde bristled. On either side of a white face, she had two tufts of black hair that were practically made to bristle. Her high-pitched voice dripped with wounded dignity. “I’m a white-headed marmoset. At least for now. I hope to be human again soon.” Her tone warmed as she addressed the sand witch. “I don’t suppose you’ve come to help me, dearest Grinda?”
“I think we can help each other, Mathilde. Løcher’s time has come. I’d like to know how to get to him.”
The marmoset’s eyes blazed with blue fire. “Yes!” Then her fur flattened all around, and she drew back. “I mean no. I want to get him. Personally. Vengeance shall be mine.” And a very squeaky vengeance it would be, Poltro couldn’t help noticing.
“But Mathilde, you know very well that you can’t in this condition. And if we get him for you, then the enchantment’s broken and you’ll be free.”
“What’s going on?” Gustave asked. “Did she get zapped by Staph the pixie, too?”
Mathilde’s marmoset mouth formed an adorable o of surprise as she turned to Gustave, then her eyes burned blue again as her tiny head made minuscule movements, checking him out. “Is that the aura of a Chosen One I see on him?”
“It is,” Grinda confirmed.
“Staph laid it on him?”
“At Løcher’s instruction. He’s still after King Benedick, and this is how he’s going to get it done. Unless we get to him and Staph first.”
“Auughh!” Mathilde squeaked, shaking her tiny marmoset fist at the sky. “I hate Løcher!”
“Still don’t know what’s going on,” Gustave reminded them.
Mathilde composed herself and explained. “I used to date Løcher, even though Grinda warned me not to. I should have listened, but I have a thing for bad boys, whoa dang. I mean, let me tell you, I used to hang out with the Dread Necromancer Steve, okay?”
“Augggh!” Fia cried out, shaking her massive fist at the sky. “I hate Steve!”
“Gadzooks! You dated him, too?” Mathilde asked.
“Briefly.”
“Oh, no!” The marmoset’s face scrunched up in disgust. “Did he want you to do that one thing with the—”
“Yes!” Fia’s anguish was plain.
“Ew! Gross!”
“I know! Totally!”
“Anyway!” Gustave interrupted. “You were saying.”
“Right. Well, Løcher found out about Steve, and even though it was a long time ago, I guess he’s jealous of necromancers or something. Pitched a fit and said I’d betrayed him somehow, even tho
ugh that business was all before I met him and I didn’t even like Steve! So Løcher turned me into a marmoset with my own wand and scattered all my other magic doodads around, transforming them into this and that and guarding them with horrible monsters. I’ve managed to get most of them back thanks to other people questing for them, but unfortunately, I can’t turn them or myself back to normal without my wand. I still need it. And if you want me to help you, Grinda, I’ll need you to get it for me. Only then will I tell you how to get through Løcher’s defenses, because he is vulnerable there, though he doesn’t realize it.”
“Wait, wait, sorry. Just trying to make sense of this,” Poltro said. “Why didn’t he just destroy all your stuff once he had you beat? Wouldn’t that have been the ultimate victory? Seems like a right waste of his energy and everybody’s time, hiding objects that will restore your power.”
Mathilde leveled a blank stare at the rogue. “He did it for the sake of sadism, I imagine. He would never think it a waste of his time or energy to be cruel to me. Dangling the possibility of a return to my powers is exquisite torture, I assure you.”
“But if you’re successful, then he’d just have to defeat you again. Though now that I think of it, I suppose I’ve done stuff twice lots of times too. Thing is, I usually apply some special creams and lotions afterward or else I get an awful rash.”
“Fine,” Grinda said with a resigned sigh. “Where’s your wand?”
“It’s being used as an unbreakable toothpick by a troll in—”