The next few hours were the longest of Pryce Covington’s life. He was tempted to use the time exploring the grotto or returning to the Ambersong residence for a nap, but he knew he would have a very hard time exploring or sleeping with the weight of this investigation on his head.
So, instead, he waited a few minutes after Fullmer’s departure, then slowly climbed the ladder out of the grotto. He tried to analyze any new information as he went, but the many “whys” he asked himself were answered only by “huh?” or “what do you mean?” or “I’m not sure I follow that.”
When Pryce emerged from the trapdoor into the eating and drinking establishment, he found himself beside a thick leg attached to the rest of Azzoparde Schreders’s burly body. The proprietor smiled down at him and offered a hand. “Get what you want, Master Blade? Eh, eh?” the friendly barkeep boomed as he lifted Pryce easily from the opening.
“Not yet,” Pryce said, dusting himself off, “but I’m working on it”
It was late afternoon, and the crowd was sparse. Pryce looked over the bar to see Berridge Lymwich sitting at a distant table near the door, staring at him from over a glass. But instead of giving him a suspicious look, she had formed her thin lips into a knowing smile. Silently she raised her glass to him.
With one hand, Pryce reached down, took an empty tankard from a holder under the bar, and raised it sardonically to Lymwich in return. As he put it back, he used his other arm to nudge Azzo. The proprietor turned his solid bulk toward Covington with a low, rumbling “Hmmm?”
“Isn’t Inquisitrix Lymwich on duty?” he inquired lightly, nodding toward her. Schreders looked over at the thin woman, who was no longer looking in their direction. Instead, she was looking out the front windows at the splendid Lallor afternoon.
Azzo shrugged. “She often comes in after the lunch rush.” He smiled at Pryce. “Even inquisitrixes have to eat sometime. Eh, eh?”
Covington was distracted by the passing of Sheyrhen Karkober. He watched her saunter across the floor, then turn to wink at him. Then she placed a bill of fare on a table where the gaunt figure of Asche Hartov sat.
Well, well, well, Pryce thought. All the suspects in easy proximity, perhaps to overhear what Fullmer and I had to say to each other. The shapely serving wench and the lean mine owner spoke to each other for a few moments, then the beautiful blonde waitress walked back to the bar.
Pryce thought she was going to give Azzo the visiting miner’s payment, but instead she leaned both elbows on the bar, bent forward to expose a generous portion of cleavage and said, “Mr. Hartov wanted me to say hello to you, Darling.”
Pryce cocked his head to one side and was about to inquire whether the “Darling” came from Asche or her, but the waitress had already gone about her business. Meanwhile, however, Covington noticed that Azzo had raised his head and was giving his serving wench a strange look… an expression Pryce felt himself mirroring when he saw Dearlyn Ambersong come through the front door, carrying a large book from Geerling’s library.
Pryce realized it was later than he thought. They had arranged to meet even before Wotfirr had shown up at the Ambersong residence earlier in the day. Covington quickly and expertly vaulted over the bar, swinging his legs to the side like a gymnast, and landed on the floor just as Dearlyn reached him. She was obviously more impressed with this than she had been by his cartwheels to escape her magically powered bed.
“Did you find out anything?” she asked quietly, her beautiful eyes darting from side to side. He placed a hand on her arm and moved her casually toward a table near the opposite wall.
“Not yet,” he replied tightly, annoyed that he couldn’t tell her everything without revealing his true identity. “Fullmer and I have a rendezvous later tonight, when I hope to learn something.” He pulled out a chair for her, then quickly sat opposite. “Have you seen Gheevy?”
“Yes,” she replied. “He came directly from here to our residence, and he was terribly upset. He thought he had failed you.”
Pryce quickly shook his head, deciding to concentrate on the problem at hand. “He did his best, poor fellow,” Covington quickly assured her, then let the rest of his instructions come out in a hushed rush as he leaned toward her. “Go back and keep him company. I can’t risk trying to follow Fullmer, and I think I should remain in a public place until our meeting.”
She placed her hands on his. He stared at them, then looked up at her. Her gaze was earnest. “You’re the only connection I have to my father now,” she said. “Please be careful.”
This was too much. Emotions of paternal tenderness rushed up in Pryce’s brain, but in order to stay in control, he fought them back. His feelings for her were countered by the knowledge of what he had already done and his own suspicions of how her father might be involved in the murders… not to mention who else might be stalking Pryce even as he sat there.
“Of course I’m not going to be careful!” he snapped at her. She blinked at his reply, and then he made a motion to shoo her away with his free hand. His other hand lay beneath the warmth of hers… as long as that lasted. “Away with you, woman!”
Her jaw set, her gaze hardened, and she stood up. She stared at him a moment more, her fists clenching and reclenching. Then she turned purposefully away and left the restaurant.
Pryce sat in the gathering darkness of twilight, a nearby pillar casting a shadow across his face. He left his right hand, the one she had clasped, where it lay and watched her proud, erect figure move past the front window toward the hidden circular iron stairway. Only then did he finish his thought in a whisper.
“There’s no need for both of us to be in danger.”
For a short time, Pryce read the wisdom of Priest Sante. Then he ate a leisurely dinner, lovingly served by the attentive Karkober. He studied the schedule of the restaurant’s employees, taking careful note of when the dwarf chef and human dishwasher took their breaks. Then he sat and watched as the citizens of Lallor came and went, all giving him the respect of his privacy, as he was expected to give them theirs. But Schreders’s was a popular place, so it wasn’t long before the tables and bar filled up with the most interesting residents the city had to offer, and the noise and smoke got loud and thick.
Only then did Pryce purposefully rise, carry the book to the bar, and lean over between a sumptuously garbed old half-elf scholar and an elegant middle-aged seamstress. “Azzo!” Covington called above the din, gaining the barkeep’s attention. Schreders came over immediately. It was, after all, Darlington Blade calling him. “Keep this for safekeeping, would you?” Pryce said, handing him the book. “I have a meeting to attend. I’ll be back for it.”
Azzo didn’t bother to reply. Instead, he took the book and nodded reassuringly. Pryce waited until the barkeep had placed the book in a dry spot under the far side of the bar and was again busy with his patrons before moving quietly and purposefully toward the back of the establishment.
He found the kitchen easily. It was the only door along the back wall. He waited until the cook and dishwasher stepped out for a break before he slipped inside the swinging door. He stood in a well-lit and well-furnished kitchen, especially noting the fine cast-iron stoves and marble sinks. A huge wooden table separated the cooking area from the cleaning area. One side was filled with the freshest fruits, vegetables, and meats, and the other with the cleanest of pans, pots, and plates. Pryce’s nostrils filled with the scent of cooking food, still simmering on the fires.
Pryce quickly spotted the back door. That was where deliveries were made, and where Fullmer had set their rendezvous. There was still some time before their meeting, so Covington had a few minutes to carefully search the area.
He opened the back door a crack, looked quickly about, then stepped outside. The night was as pleasant as the day had been. The moon cast a serene silver-blue light over everything, and the elegant foliage seemed to reach up toward the twinkling stars. The air was cool, clean, and filled with the aroma of pollandry blooms.
Pryce surveyed the rendezvous point. It was approximately twenty by thirty feet, surrounded on three sides by a vine-covered stone wall that rose fifty feet up to the roots of the Ambersong residence. To his left, the stone wall was connected to the back wall of the restaurant. But on the right side, there was a long, narrow, twisting alley between the restaurant’s wall and the stone. There delivery people could carry fresh food and drink from their carriages to the back door.
Covington thought he heard a rustle behind him. He spun around, but saw no one. The leaves of the flowering vines rustled in the night wind, but otherwise no person or animal disturbed the calm. Pryce quickly glanced back into the alley. It was the only way Fullmer could arrive. Covington decided to take up a position by the rear door. That way, if Teddington brought “friends,” Pryce could easily slip inside.
He made a quick final survey of the area, running his hands along the stone wall to make sure there wasn’t another hidden spiral staircase. He was pleased to find there wasn’t. Instead, he simply found large, flat, vine-covered stones. Standing with his back to them, he looked at the restaurant’s rear door, feeling safer than he had all evening.
With a decisive, flat-palmed slap to the flat rocks of the wall behind him, he took a step forward.
He stopped dead in his tracks.
The flat rock behind him had moved inward.
Goose bumps covered Pryce’s skin in a rolling wave, and the hair on the back of his neck stood straight out as he heard the same rustling as before, only this time coming from above him.
He tried to somersault away, but as he began to dive forward, something hard, heavy, and painful smashed into the back of his head. There was sudden, incredible pressure, and then he felt his brain shift, crashing into the inner side of his forehead.
He felt as if Berridge Lymwich had hit him full with her inquisitrix spell. He was blinded by white. Then the white suddenly swirled with gray. Then black dots emerged from the gathering haze, growing larger and larger until the white was gone and the gray was swallowed up.
Then all was black, and blacker still, until he fell into the blackest pit of all.
Pryce Covington knew he wasn’t dead when his brain started lecturing him.
Apparently it was its way of dealing with the shock of the attack, once it had determined that the assault was not fatal. Seemingly, from what Pryce was distantly hearing, his subconscious was stunned, both physically and mentally, by the blow to the back of his head.
In a land where magic was extolled, the need to strike someone on the back, side, top, or front of the head seemed so unnecessaryeven barbaricthat Pryce’s brain couldn’t decide whether it was more perplexed than hurt.
Later Pryce would call it a draw. Actually, he would have loved to have been more perplexed than hurt, but a blow to the skull in any form had unavoidable consequences of a physical nature. In a word, pain.
As usual, when self-pity wrestled with purpose, the former almost always won out. As soon as he was conscious enough, Pryce found himself thinking, What did I do to deserve this? through a needle-pricking haze. He was so thankful the light seemed to be turned back on again that his relief nearly forced the pain away… but only for a second. Then his mind sent out a series of lightning bolts of renewed pain.
He had once seen a magical crystal ball with a storm inside it. Through its transparent shell, he could see a small cloud from which many dozens of lightning bolts arced out, dancing all over the inside surface of the orb. Now he could well imagine what that ball would have felt like if it had been lined with nerve endings.
He tried opening one eye. The view wasn’t promising. It seemed dark and craggy and hairy. It was also still painful. He squeezed his eye shut again.
Wait a minute, he thought. Hairy? It seemed to be making disconcertingly rabid noises as well.
Pryce’s eyes snapped open. Something was bobbing in his vision. It was black and red and orange and furry. There were two fuzzy half-cones on either side of a hairy half-dome, moving up and down and slavering. Covington dimly remembered seeing that somewhere before..
“Cunningham!” he bellowed. “Get off me, you beast!”
The jackalwere leapt back as Pryce tried to jump up, but the creature knew his surroundings better than the man did. Pryce’s head slammed into a low, rocky ledge that laid him back down hard.
Getting hit on the head was bad enough, but hitting himself on the head was even worse. Pryce felt as if he were sinking into the bay beyond the Lalloreef, but he sensed a jackal turtle waiting for him beneath the surface, its slavering maw opening and closing in eager anticipation. Covington clawed back toward the surface, ignoring the millions of mental lightning bolts that danced around him.
“Cunningham!” he cried. “Don’t you dare gorge on me!” The sharp yellow teeth of the jackalwere filled his vision like a horizon of tombstones. Pryce cried out in spite of himself, making the creature leap back once more into the surrounding gloom. Covington’s cry of surprise turned into a groan of suffering as pain pushed everything else aside. “II don’t feel well,” he managed to understate.
“I have seen you looking better,” Cunningham informed him, “if you don’t mind my saying so.”
Pryce hoped that by concentrating on the jackalwere he could crawl out of the thicket of agony inside his head. “You were going to take a bite out of me, weren’t you?”
“Oh, my good sir, no!” The jackalwere sounded mortally offended.
“Yes, you were, and then you were planning on drinking my blood. Right?” “Not at all.”
‘You’re hungry, and you’ve got a brood to feed.” “I’ll have you know, sir, that we are subsisting quite well on your kindness.”
That reminded Pryce of how he had complicated his own situation in the disposition of the dead bodies, which pained his spirit as well. He groaned again, gripping the sides of his head to keep it from cracking open like an egg. Moving very carefully, he started to get up.
“Be careful, my good man,” Cunningham warned, stepping forward to assist him.
“You keep your distance,” Covington said sharply.
The jackalwere, now fully returned to his human state, placed a limp hand against his chest. “You injure me, sir.”
“Better I injure you verbally than you injure me physically,” Pryce countered. “Where am I, anyway?”
Cunningham took the chance of leaning over conspiratorially. “We are beneath the city, sir, in a series of tunnels I’ve found quite useful.”
Pryce glanced around, careful not to move too quickly. It was so dark that he couldn’t see much. Cunningham, being part jackal, could probably see as clear as day. “You haven’t been using this lair to claim new, uh… meals, have you?”
“Pardon my familiarity, sir,” the jackalwere replied haughtily, “but have you lost your senses? You especially should know that a creature of my kind on the streets of Lallor would last about as long as a shard of ice in Zzuntal. I am taking a certain risk just by traveling beneath the streets.”
“So why are you?” Pryce asked, hoping to gather enough of his senses to really think by the time the creature finished answering.
‘You truly are addled, good sir,” the jackal-man decided. “Do you not recall the words you left me with on the evening of our initial meeting? No, I have not forgotten your mercy, sir. Imagine, the great Darlington Blade, wasting compassion on the accursed likes of myself and my progeny!” He seemed positively giddy. Such was the fame of the great Darlington Blade.
“If you are truly grateful,” Pryce moaned, massaging his temples, “call me something other than ‘great’ Please? Why can’t I be the decent Darlington Blade, or the fine Darlington Blade, or the fairly convincing Darlington Blade? Why must I always be ‘great’?”
Cunningham shook his head sadly. He answered Pryce’s miserable acrimony with honesty. “You brought it upon yourself, sir,” he informed him. “Even in the short time that I have been privy to your actions, you have more than lived up to your reputation.” He stopped to seriously consider Pryce’s declaration. “Perhaps you would consider not being so great all the time,” he decided. “I’m sure the populace at large would eventually offer you a more fitting sobriquet”
Pryce stopped rubbing his head long enough to look at the jackalwere out of the corner of his eye. “That was sarcasm, wasn’t it?”
The jackalwere merely stood there in his somewhat shabby attire, looking for all the world like a butler who had seen better times. “You have truly great insight, sir, but, no. I am being completely forthcoming in my appreciation.”
“Thank you,” Pryce said, finally able to sit up. He looked askance at the jackalwere, realizing that a full belly gave the beast a much greater control over his animal nature. Then Pryce attempted to peer into the darkness again. “How long have I been unconscious?”
“I honestly don’t know, sir. All I know for sure was when I found you.”
Pryce looked at him patiently. “And when was that?”
“Quite some time ago, sir. At least the time it takes for the moon to travel an eighth of the way across the night sky.”
Pryce touched his head gingerly, carefully trying to find the wound. “You’d think that being out that long would at least give me some night vision,” he complained, then sucked in his breath when his finger found the lump. “Or maybe brain damage.”
“Are you all right now, sir?”
Pryce carefully outlined the damage on his head. “Thankfully the philosopher Sante was also something of a healer,” he said. “According to him, a blow to the front of the head stuns a person. A blow to the back of the head renders one unconscious. A blow to the side means death.” Pryce cautiously noted that his wound was between the back and the side of his cranium. “Apparently my assailant couldn’t make up his mind.”
Cunningham sighed. “As fascinating as all this is, sir, might I suggest a cessation of examination and an introduction of action? The longer I stay here, the greater chance that someone above will detect my presence.”
“Of course, of course.” Pryce looked around carefully, but could still see little farther than his hands. “Where are the little ones?”
“With any luck,” said the jackalwere, “still safe in their thickets.”
“This tunnel goes all the way to the outside of the city wall?” Pryce asked, incredulous.
“It emerges near the Mark of the Question, in fact. From there you have to be quick and cautious to reach cover, but it is a far sight more safe than strolling in view of the gate eye.”
“I should think so.”
“Come,” Cunningham pressed, offering his hand. “I’ll take you back to where I found you.”
This item of news was even more surprising to Pryce than the offer of a jackalwere’s hand. “You mean you didn’t find me here?”
“Why, no, of course not. You were far closer to harm’s way, I’m told.”
‘You were told? By whom?”
“Not whom,” said the Jackalwere solemnly. “By what.” Then he stepped back, and looming into Covington’s view were the two most shocking faces he had ever laid eyes on.
The broken one was named Devolawk. “He was named after the creatures he was mingled from,” Cunningham said sadly. Pryce, never one to be particularly squeamish about the workings of his planet, studied the unclothed animal man closely. It was still dark in the tunnel, and the great Darlington Blade wouldn’t have gasped, grimaced, or scrambled away at the mere sight of a few monsters. Pathetic monsters to be sure, but monsters nonetheless.
Where the “vol” part of his name came from was clear enough. One side of his snout was constantly quivering and had pine-needle-like whiskers. The eye on the same side was small, round, and dark, but could see clearly in the gloom. At least part of this beast was descended… or stolen… from a vole. The “awk” aspect of his name could be seen in the left side. His snout was actually a beak, and the left eye was large, bluish white, and surrounded by feathers. The thing was also part hawk.
“Devolawk,” Pryce mused aloud. “What does the ‘De’ part stand for?”
The jackalwere seemed about to answer, then slowly closed his mouth and stepped back. The broken one leaned close, and his snout-beak opened. Inside, Pryce could see teeth… broken, rotting, chipped human teeth. “De-e-ead man,” came the careful, tortured voice, ending in what sounded like a vole’s squeak and a bird’s whistle.
“Dead man,” Covington breathed, unable to completely cover his distaste. Even so, he leaned closer to survey the poor thing’s body. It wasn’t even as lucky as the head, which seemed to share its three pieces relatively equally. The body, however, was a riotous mix of the person, animal, and bird it was combined from. Flesh mingled with hide mixed with feathers, sometimes in the space of a finger.
Devolawk was painfully hunched over. The top of his human spine was obviously joined by the bones of a vole. One leg was mostly hawk, while the other was mostly vole and painfully shorter, ending in an incongruous human foot.
Pryce leaned to the right and looked at the jackalwere. “He was made from a vole, a hawk, and a corpse?”
Before Cunningham could answer, Pryce felt claws and feathers on his arm. The broken one was leaning down, a human cornea gleaming in the bird’s eye. “A reeeee-sus-citated corpse,” Devolawk wheezed. “I eeeeeven hafffff mem-mor-eeeees, sometiiiimes,” it said with unmistakable wistfulness and pain, “but I do not know whooooo from!”
Pryce laid his hand on the mutated arm. Speaking was obviously torture for the thing, and understanding his words wasn’t all that pleasurable either. But despite the odd place Pryce found himself in, and the odd companions he was meeting, he recognized the possibility that he might be able to discover more leads and clues from this unusual source. Covington looked deep into the sad, tormented, mangled eyes and wondered how he looked to the animal man.
Animal men… their very existence screamed of magic gone mad. Back in Merrickarta, Pryce had used what he had heard about these victims as just one more reason magic, and magicians, should not be trusted. Broken ones were once human, but they had been used as living subjects of sorcerous experiments that were disapproved of at best, or openly forbidden at worst. The rumor that many were the result of reincarnation spells seemed validated by Devolawk’s strange heredity.
The adventurer and the jackalwere now turned their attention to the other poor monster. If the five-foot-tall Devolawk was a tragedy of magic, the seven-foot-tall mongrelman was a tragedy of nature. No sorcerer had created this misshapen beast. Only powers beyond life could have perpetrated this abomination. He was a combination of more than a dozen genetic types, from bugbears and bullywugs to ogres and ores… with just enough human hormones spooned in to make him rational.
His huge head was part hair, part hide, part scales, part flesh, and part fur. He looked vaguely like an unfinished wall of mortar, wood, and tile. His two eyes were wildly mismatched and accompanied by a stout, animal-like nose and a wide maw made up of at least three dozen different sizes and shapes of teeth.
“Geeeee,” he whistled. “Offfff,” he grunted. “Freeeee!” he shrieked, the rags that partially covered his flesh shaking. Or at least that’s what Pryce thought it said. His animal sounds left much leeway for interpretation and made both Pryce and Cunningham cringe with discomfort.
“He keeps repeating that,” Cunningham told Pryce. “I think that is what he wants to be called.”
“Gee, off, free?” Pryce echoed. The mongrelman nodded vigorously, reminding Covington of a horse. “Geeoffree,” Pryce said again. “Geoffrey! Of course!”
Cunningham smiled in recognition. “You must be correct, sir. He must have seen the name Geoffrey and thought it was pronounced gee, off, free.”
Pryce looked back at the rag-covered monster, which loomed large in the relatively cramped space of the cave. “Well, if it’s Geoffrey you want, Geoffrey it shall be.” The mongrelman lowered his head, shaking, and then, much to Pryce’s surprise, his eyes began to tear. “There, there, my fine fellow,” Pryce soothed, putting his hand on the thing’s shoulder. ‘There’s no need for that.” The mongrelman started, but when Pryce didn’t remove his hand, he finally grew still.
Cunningham shook his head. “Mongrelmen are seldom welcomed by humans. Often they are enslaved by scoundrels. Geoffrey must be overcome that you would accept his company so readily.” Pryce noted the jackalwere looking off into the darkness. No doubt he was thinking of all the human hatred he must have faced throughout his miserable life.
“Cunningham,” Pryce snapped, bringing back the jackalwere’s attention. “I’m sure that if you didn’t have an inhuman need to kill people, drink their blood, and eat them, you would have more friends, too.”
The human beast blinked, then nodded curtly. “I don’t know what it is, sir. Your presence, power, and wisdom must be havingdare I say it? a civilizing effect on me.”
Pryce shook his head in wonder. He was certain that if these three knew he was not who they thought he was, a third of him would already be residing in each of their stomachs. “Be that as it may, or may not, be,” he said to the jackalwere, “I need to know where they found me and what they saw. Perhaps we can elicit some sort of translation from their brethren.”
“They have no brethren.”
“No brethren?” Pryce said incredulously, leaning toward Cunningham. “How is that possible? I’ve heard that broken ones reside in groups of up to five dozen creatures. The mongrelmen who manage to avoid enslavement even create their own villages and communities.”
“But, sir,” the jackalwere retorted, “he is enslaved.”
“He is?” Pryce marveled. “By whom?”
“The same force that enslaves me,” Cunningham declared bitterly. “It lured me here with promises that would fill my heart’s desire, then sorely used me for my basest, most antisocial skills.”
At least one part of that statement sounded ominously familiar to Covington. He remembered that he himself had been lured to Lallor. “Cunningham!” he barked. “I couldn’t ask you this when we last met because of your bloodlust. You said that a misshapen one first enticed you here. Was that Devolawk?”
The jackalwere nodded shamefully, and Pryce’s eyes had finally adjusted well enough to the dark to see the affirmation. “Devolawk,” he asked the broken one, “who had you lure the jackalwere here?”
The broken one answered painfully and slowly through his rotting human teeth, but it was clear enough for Pryce to understand, despite the vole’s hisses and hawk’s cries. “Don’t… knowwww. Woke… from death… with orders allllready… in myyyyy mind!”
Pryce pursed his lips. The poor thing had been created as a slave, with instructions already implanted in its polymorphed brain. But what was the mongrelman’s part in all this?
“Cunningham,” he continued, “I think I know now who actually enticed you here. But I need to know why. What did you have to do to get this so-called limitless supply of fresh, high-quality human meat?”
The jackalwere hung his head. “I was told… by the faceless wind… to find a mongrelman skilled in concealment.”
“Ah,” Pryce said. Mongrelmen were known for their skills in pickpocketing, mimicry, camouflage, and all the variations thereof.
“It’s obvious to me now,” Cunningham confessed, “that Geoffrey was brought here to guard these tunnels.”
“Why?” Pryce asked the mongrelman. ‘What is hidden down here, Geoffrey?”
The mongrelman shook his head vigorously, waving his part hand, part claw, part hoof in a warding-off gesture.
“Geoffrey,” Pryce pressed, “are you the one who saved me? Are you the one who found me unconscious?” The mongrelman stared at him, his head and hand movement slowing, then finally stopping. “You can trust me, Geoffrey,” Pryce stressed. “I swear on my… name… I won’t let your enslaver hurt you.” He blushed, hoping his quandary wouldn’t be too obvious in the darkness, night vision or no night vision.
The mongrelman finally nodded.
“Are you the one who dragged me here? Are you the one who carried me to safety?”
The mongrelman looked up with something approaching hope, then nodded more energetically.
Pryce looked toward the others. “He was concealing me as well. But why? What does he know that we don’t?”
Suddenly Devolawk started to speak. “Heeeee knewwwww you. Darliiiiington Blade! Only you… can heeeeelp us!” The mongrelman nodded again, even more vigorously.
Pryce felt a sudden pang of hopelessness. Now a trio of monsters were looking to him for help, a responsibility Pryce Covington from Merrickarta would have rejected as absurd and impossible from every standpoint.
“Pleeeease!” Devolawk screeched piteously. “I want to fly-yyyyy. I want to sleeeeep! I want to beeeee freeeee!”
Pryce moved quickly to his feet and put his hands on what served as the broken one’s shoulders. “Easy, Devolawk. Calm yourself.” He found himself standing in the middle of a monster triangle. They hemmed him in from every side.
“Devolawk sleeps in misery,” said Cunningham, “in various dark recesses of the tunnels. Geoffrey guards. What, I do not know.”
Covington’s mind reeled. “It must have been powerful magic indeed to create this poor broken one…” And what was the single most important magical consideration in Lallor at this moment? “Fullmer!” Pryce cried suddenly. His mind had finally cleared enough to remember who he had been supposed to meet when he was knocked out.
“I beg your pardon, sir?” Cunningham inquired. “Is that some sort of magical incantation?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Pryce replied. “He’s a captain of industry on the pirate seas, remember?”
“The chin-spiked one? But what does he have to do with”
“Just enough, apparently. He’s looking for what everyone around here seems to be looking for.”
Cunningham shrugged. “And what would that be, sir?”
Pryce’s pointed at the mongrelman. “Unless I miss my guess, it’s what he’s guarding.” The other two monsters looked at the master of concealment.
“Geeeee-off-freeeee!” Devolawk whistled. “Show usssss!”
“Show us what the humans are after,” Cunningham repeated urgently. “Now!”
The section of wall the mongrelman led them to was not very impressive in and of itself. In fact, it looked just like any other part of the cave until Pryce noticed a bulge near the floor and another just below the stone ceiling. Covington looked at the mongrelman, who was jabbing his finger repeatedly at a place high on the wall. Cunningham and Devolawk looked at each other in confusion, then looked to Pryce expectantly. The human had no intention of disappointing them.
He stepped up onto the bottom protuberance, which was effectively a cleverly sculpted step designed to appear as a natural part of the rock. Pryce grabbed the top protrusion, which had been chiseled into a seemingly natural rock shape, but was actually a rung that could be held onto easily.
Slowly and carefully Pryce pulled himself up the length of the wall until he found himself looking down a cunningly camouflaged hole cut through the rock. Looking up from the cave floor, it would have been invisible, because its lower lip was carved upward, like a tankard set high in the wall. Until someone looked down at it, there was no hint that the opening was even there. Pryce stared down into the hole until he could see no farther.
He looked down at the mongrelman. “Is this your doing?” The beast shook its hoary head from side to side in reply. Pryce turned to look back down the tube-shaped hole. It couldn’t have been more than three inches in circumference and had to be at least three feet deep. Pryce placed his eye directly against the opening.
Pryce could just make out the other side of the tube. It ended inside a larger enclosure, one that did not have a rock floor, but Pryce couldn’t tell for sure what it was. He couldn’t make out the details because something was obscuring his vision partway down the rock pipe. There was some sort of grating in the way.
“Cunningham?” Pryce said, lowering himself carefully down to the rock floor. “I wonder if you would do me a small favor.”
“Yes, sir, of course. How can I be of service?”
Pryce smiled tightly. “I need you to use your full jackal night vision, but without developing an overwhelming urge to open any of my arteries. Do you think you could do that?”
Cunningham found himself staring at Pryce’s neck much the same way he would look at a succulent roast. He grew noticeably pale. Then he swallowed. He looked to the other monsters for support. “I shall endeavor to do my utmost,” he promised shakily.
Pryce was fascinated by the change that came over the man-beast after he had lifted himself up to the hole in the wall. Suddenly his skin sprouted red, orange, and black hair, which mingled into a mat of fur from his upper lip to his forehead. His left eye changed with it, turning from a human sphere to an animal’s black orb. Its center seemed to glow yellow, and he… it… snarled menacingly.
Pryce stepped back nervously, but when the jackalwere dropped lightly to his feet and turned to face him, his face had transformed back to the innocuous features of the impoverished but cultured traveler. “Most unusual,” he commented.
‘Yes?”
“There is indeed a chamber of some sort on the other side of the rock tube.” ‘Yes?”
“But there is also a grating of some sort.”
“So far we’re in perfect agreement,” Pryce said impatiently, “but I thought it was worth risking unleashing your animal side for corroboration.” Cunningham looked at him with one eyebrow raised before Pryce exclaimed, “Details, man, details! What does the grating look like?”
‘Well, actually, it looks like letters.”
Pryce turned to the others. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Which letters?”
‘They are oddly shaped, sir, like some sort of artistic script. I could make out a U with a line over it… an underlined V… the top half of an 0,… and a P^with rounded bottoms.”
“U-V-O-W,” Pryce repeated the letters aloud. ” You vow’? You vow to do what?”
“Whatever vow it is, sir,” interrupted Cunningham, “it certainly seems to be a code of some sort.”
“Or a lock…” Pryce mused, fingering his cloak clasp. “Of course!” he realized. “A key!” He looked down at the clasp, seeing the letters D and B upside down and backward. “In a city of wizards, what sort of entry would you devise to protect your most valuable possessions?”
“One a sorcerer could not circumvent,” Cunningham said. “A magical lock.”
“Not magical,” Pryce insisted, realizing the clasp did not glow as it neared the opening. “No matter how great a magician you are, there will always be a greater one. No, to truly protect your valuables from sorcerers, the lock needs to be mechanical!”
“Mechanical?” Cunningham repeated as if the word was distasteful. “Can you open it, sir?”
Pryce held the cloak clasp between his thumb and index finger. He twisted it this way and that. “Not yet. I don’t have all the letters yet. But I think I will, very soon.” He turned to the misshapen ones. “I promise,” he said, “to do everything in my power to free you from your bondage. You have the word of Darlington Blade.” He marveled at the way it was becoming steadily easier to pass himself off as Blade.
The mongrelman tried to smile, his grotesque lips twisting and spasming. The broken one, however, fell to the joints that served as his knees, tumbling off-balance to lean heavily against the cave wall. “The skyyyyy,” it choked out. “The eeeeearth… to be reeeeeleeeeased…”
“But I need you to help me,” Pryce insisted, cutting off the creature’s agonized longing. “Keep our meeting secret from anyone, or anything, you make contact with. Continue to guard this antechamber, but not from me. Can you do that?” The two creatures nodded. “Good. Now, Geoffrey, show me where you found me.”
The mongrelman lurched down the cavern, and the others followed.