Alchemist City Stories: Abridged Edition by John Xavier

system slightly tilted at a wide angle and ending in a large spinning sphere which
could propel the robot in any direction. This it seemed to do in short frequent
bursts and not entirely under the robot’s own control. As such, Cogwheel’s focus
appeared to be more preoccupied with not dropping the load they were carrying
than anything else. Goliath scratched the back of his head as he eyed his robot
assistant with amusement.

“Over on the table will do fine,” he said. Obediently, Cogwheel swerved in
the direction of said table and miraculously managed to deposit the leaning heap
of parts without any clanging to the floor. At first.

As the robot, whose turret-like head consisted of two small widely-set-apart
glowing eyes and a curling rubber appendage like an upside-down butterfly’s
proboscis, swept clean its hands in a theatrical display of accomplishment, the
items they’d just set on the table began to slide off one by one. Cogwheel froze in
apparent embarrassment until half a dozen things had fallen to the ground and
they began to pick them up. Goliath smiled a gentle smile. He could hire a mage to
adjust Cogwheel’s animatite crystal if he wanted and improve the robot’s
competency but doing so would inevitably erase their current identity and the jovial
companionship they provided more than made up for the harmless accidents they
had. When Cogwheel was done, the robot wiped away a non-existent forehead
with the back of their hand and let out an imitative sigh.

“Whew boss! We’ve sure got a lot of stuff in the back. Any chance we might
have a sale or something soon? Heck, I bet you wouldn’t have to repair me so often
if I didn’t have to dig through so much junk to find things. Think about it.” The giant
let out a single laugh before smirking.

“I’m not seeing the torso I need.” Cogwheel rotated a few times in place by
way of apology.

“Oops! Sorry boss! I’ll go get it!”

Minutes passed before a waiting Goliath looked at the cuckoo clock in his
garage. Then several more. Curious about what it was this time, the bald giant with
perpetually goggled eyes decided to go look for himself and, setting aside his
instruments, he trudged across the room and through the previously mentioned

doorway – one that unfortunately required him to stoop. Down a short hall he
came to the storage area where his supplies were kept and, inside, racks
overflowing with machine parts towered all the way to the ceiling. It was quiet
within but as Goliath paused he heard something strange.

“Don’t worry,” whispered Cogwheel. “We can fix that right up, trust me. My
master is the good sort. Never one to turn away from those in need.” Alarmed,
Goliath shuffled over in the direction of the voice and, appearing from behind a
shelf, he found his servant leaning over the cringing form of a young woman in a
colorful corseted dress. But despite her remarkably human features, it was clear
that her ceramic skin was the kind that could only belong to an artificial being. She
was stupendously beautiful even in her notably disheveled state, and it was this
quality admittedly which magnified the hurt in Goliath’s heart as the fear she was
radiating became evident. Alone and scared, she had snuck inside and was feebly
trying to reattach a severed arm.

It took nearly an hour before Goliath and Cogwheel managed to coax her out
of the storage area and into the main bay of the garage. There she arrived with soft
timid steps, her good arm clutching the separated one as if afraid it might be stolen.
Goliath took the lead in encouraging her to sit down and, after much gesturing and
glances exchanged with his robot servant, he succeeded. The android girl was
sitting on a stool, staring at Cogwheel as he amusingly discussed various aspects of
the garage, when Goliath finally decided to broach more serious matters.

“You’re… very wonderfully crafted,” he said hesitantly. “Do you know who
created you?” She apologetically shook her head.

“I don’t.” Goliath now puckered his lips in thought.

“Do you have a name?” he asked after a moment. The android girl let slip a
nervous smile before quickly concealing it.

“Arte,” she said with the hush of a confession. Then, just as Goliath was
about to venture another question, Cogwheel offered some awkward praise.

“A splendid name. The sum of beauty! Worthy of such a fine young lady,”
asserted the robot grandiosely. Cogwheel was trying to charm Arte and put her at
ease but Goliath became concerned the robot’s energy was too much.

“Rest assured the noble master here can put you right back together! He
fixes all sorts of machines! Takes them apart too! Not that he’d take you apart! Oh
no! But if you needed that he could do it blindfolded! Indubitably! I trust him with
all my maintenance. Furthermore…” Here Goliath interrupted.

“Cogwheel,” he said firmly. “Why don’t you see to arranging a room for Arte
to stay in tonight? I’m sure we can do better than the junk pile she stumbled into.”
Oblivious to the nuance of what Goliath had said, Cogwheel was nevertheless
happy to please.

“Right away master,” he said with a salute before turning to Arte. “This may
not be a patrician’s inn but we’ll find you something cozy, don’t worry.”

“You needn’t go to any trouble,” pleaded Arte a moment later. “I’m sorry. I
was just looking for somewhere to repair myself. I didn’t take anything and I’ll be
on my way… if you let me.” Goliath shook his head.

“I won’t hear it. You can stay as long as you like. Besides, Cogwheel rarely
gets to do anything besides helping me with my work. The surprise of your
appearance is honestly quite welcome. By both of us.” Arte smiled, but then looked
down, unsure of how to express her gratitude. Sensing this, Goliath continued.

“Can I see your arm?” he asked gingerly. Arte made eye contact now, silently
imploring the giant not to insist but then the faint signs of realization crossed her
face and she slowly handed him her detached limb.

“Amazing work,” he said sincerely as he inspected the arm lying across the
palms of his open hands. “And it appears there’s no serious damage. Some splicing
and light welding should do the trick. Here, let me see the socket.”

Nervously, Arte shifted on the stool so Goliath could inspect the shoulder
missing its appendage. After a few seconds of scrutiny, Goliath gave Arte a
twinkling grin.

“You’ll be perfect again in no time.” Arte didn’t try to disguise her relief.

***

A week passed with the three inhabitants of the shop in fine spirits. After her
initial caution faded, Arte proved herself a cheerful companion and the unusual trio
soon found themselves in pleasant domestic harmony. While Goliath and Cogwheel
ran the business as usual, Arte set herself to making little improvements in the
interior décor. A table cloth here, a reorganized drawer there; pretty soon the dingy
machinist feel that once pervaded things had all but disappeared. Customers who
never went farther than the front shop room were complimenting Goliath on the
changes but he couldn’t convince Arte to take any credit for things in person. In
fact, she swore Goliath and Cogwheel both to secrecy about her presence there
even though she’d yet to divulge anything significant about her background.
Inferring that she’d escaped some kind of serious ordeal, neither of them pressed
her but the mystery of it would fill the silences that occurred between them from
time to time. No matter what though, both Goliath and Cogwheel were agreed that
they wanted to do everything they could to help keep her safe. Unfortunately they
had no idea how difficult this would prove to be.

One day a man entered the shop. Arte was out of sight as usual but Goliath’s
heart instantly started racing. You see, the man in question wasn’t the sort to come
into this kind of place at all. He was wearing a red leather suit hiding nothing about
his gaunt but muscular body. An angular mass of sleek blonde hair jutted from his
receding hairline a couple feet beyond the back of his skull in defiance to both
natural and celestial law. His eyes meanwhile were milky blue and his lips, as pale
as those of a corpse pulled from the thawing snows of spring, were a window to
rows of sharp yellow teeth that had never shown anyone true kindness. The
electrical static that saturated his aura also confirmed that he was a sorcerer but
whether he was more monster or magician, Goliath couldn’t tell.

“Greetings shop keep,” purred the man without a trace of warmth. “We,
Revery Starlings, executor of the law, have inquiries for you to address.” Goliath
had to silently gulp before he could summon any reply to the man who was only
half his height.

“Truly my lord? I will do my best to honor your patronage. Any wares of mine
of particular interest to you?” A hint of irritation flashed over the sorcerer.

“None of that,” he hissed. “I’m here in the service of Count Ptolemy. Even an
oaf such as yourself must be familiar with His Eminence.” Goliath nodded meekly.

“I am my lord.” The sorcerer didn’t immediately follow up on this
acknowledgement but instead gazed around the room until his curiosity was
satisfied.

“Well then, no doubt you are eager to assist His Eminence with recovering
His property.” Goliath tried not to sweat.

“My lord? What kind of property?” Revery Starlings leaned over the counter
and, setting his elbows to rest on this while he brought the fingers of his hands
together, he furrowed his brow and stared up at the giant.

“Escaped property.” Trying to hide how nervous he was, Goliath abruptly
turned around and rifled through a shelf before producing a large vellum bound
book.

“I can write a report my lord and ask around.” The sorcerer’s eyes narrowed
as if they were about to cut diamonds.

“Anyone who assists us in this will be rewarded. Likewise anyone who
obstructs us will be repaid – but the other way.” Goliath fumbled trying to open the
book and barely refrained from dropping it.

“Surely… surely everyone wishes for His Eminence’s favor? I know I do. Will
you… grace me with a description of the missing item my lord?” Revery Starlings
leered menacingly before slowly standing up.

“Enjoy the rest of your day giant,” he said as he abruptly went to leave,
adding as he looked out the window at the evening sky, “Although it looks like you
don’t have much of that left.”

After a minute spent catching his breath, Goliath returned to the garage
where he found a terrified Arte slumped to the floor and Cogwheel hugging her.
Evidently she’d eavesdropped on the entire exchange.

“They found me,” she moaned, ready to sob but unable to due to her
construction. Goliath tried to console her.

“He’s gone Arte. He’s gone. And I think I convinced him I knew nothing.” A
sharp laugh descended from the rafters.

“You didn’t,” disclaimed a mysterious voice. For a second, Goliath thought it
was the wizard himself but, when he found the hooded figure standing on one of
the thin metal beams above, it clearly wasn’t.

“Who’s there?” demanded the giant but, before this could be answered, Arte
let out an outraged scream and, throwing off Cogwheel, she ran over to one of the
work benches. Snatching up a wrench lying there, she threw this spinning at the
unknown man with deadly accuracy. Instead of killing him as it should have though,
the man made a seemingly effortless leap and, in a kind of slow single cartwheel
with his feet together, landed with flawless balance on the floor far below. He held
his hands wide with an ironic look on his face as he replied to Goliath’s question.

“Not to brag but I’m Tom Stiletto.” Cogwheel let out an appreciative whistle.

“Not THE Tom Stiletto?” asked the robot with growing awe.

“Oh yes, the very same,” Tom replied. Goliath and Arte exchanged
dumbfounded looks before the giant demanded an explanation.

“Who’s Tom Stiletto?” Cogwheel clasped their hands to their face and
blinked their eyes in something that seemed disturbingly like adoration.

“One of the greatest thieves in the known realms!” Tom coughed
apologetically.

“Please. No need to be so wordy. Greatest thief will do.” It was too much for
the other two and they stood in stunned silence until the groping mind of Arte
managed to find something to ask.

“How do you even know this Cogwheel?” Taking a moment to look rather
pleased with themselves, the robot eventually got on to explaining.

“When Master Goliath first activated me he wisely made me study up on
everything related to the business – including of course security issues. Naturally
then I familiarized myself with the lore pertaining to theft in the city and the main
individuals responsible. You’d be surprised but the underworld economy is quite
large – and that’s not even including the gnomes and dwarves. Anyways, Mr.
Stiletto is very famous. Or infamous I should say. He’s had many interesting
exploits. All quite adventurous.” Tom Stiletto nodded approvingly.

It was at that moment that Cogwheel realized the presence of Tom might not
be an entirely welcome thing.

“Wait. You’re not here to steal anything are you Mr. Stiletto?” asked
Cogwheel, a hint of what for a robot approximates sadness in their words. Tom
shook his head.

“No no. I’m not here on business, strictly speaking.” Goliath let out an
exasperated sigh.

“Why ARE YOU here?” pressed the giant. The superlative thief took a seat on
a stool and stretched his legs.

“To help of course,” he replied before chuckling to himself.

“In what way?” inquired the still suspicious Goliath.

“First of all, to relieve you of the erroneous belief that you’ve fooled Revery
Starlings. The old eel’s coming back. If the obvious evidence of this android girl’s
handiwork around the shop wasn’t enough, your terrible attempt at lying no doubt
clinched it.” Real fear returned to Goliath and Arte but Tom ignored this as he went
on.

“Secondly, as someone with considerable experience in the business of
running away from the consequences of my actions, I thought I might make some
helpful suggestions regarding your departure. Most importantly, that it be soon. By
my guess, you have about half an hour before a squadron of Count Ptolemy’s goons
are kicking down your door.”

That spurred Goliath to action. Muttering suddenly to himself, he began to
search the cluttered shelves of his garage, ignoring the things falling to the floor as
he swept undesired objects aside.

“What is it boss?” asked Cogwheel while Arte looked on helplessly.

“I know it’s around here somewhere,” the giant groaned as he concentrated
on finding what he was after. Lifting up a metal rocket recently commissioned by a
fat earl for delivering decadent foodstuffs to his long besieged castle, Goliath
turned it upside-down and shook it hard. A number of gremlins fell out, swore at
the giant, and then scuttled away, but he was disappointed to find this was all.
Unsure of what to do, Arte turned to Tom Stiletto.

“Are you just going to stand around?” The thief made an effort at smiling
politely.

“Again, I’m here to be of assistance, despite the young lady’s preferred
method of greeting guests, but I assist in my own way.” Arte scowled.

“I’d throw something else at you if I thought it’d do any good.” Before a
quarrel could get underway however, Goliath cried eureka.

“It’s here,” he shouted as he held the small device aloft.

“What’s that?” Tom asked Arte nonchalantly but, irritated by his tone, she
proceeded to ignore him. Cogwheel meanwhile had disappeared to the front of the
shop to look out for trouble and now he came careening back. Seeing the remote
Goliath had grabbed, he wrist-whirled his hands in full circles approvingly.

“Just in time. They’re already gathering outside boss.” Tom Stiletto was the
least surprised of them all by this news but he perked up from the distraction of
scrutinizing his fingernails when he heard it.

“As I said. Now, you’ll have to pardon me but I won’t be fleeing with you this
evening. Other business and what not.” The rest of them absorbed this with varying
amounts of distraction but they were all too busy gathering things to respond. In a
couple minutes however the giant, the robot, and the android had all reconvened
in the main bay of the garage with some hastily packed luggage. Outside they could
hear the Count’s soldiers forming up in preparation to breach the shop. Oddly
enough Tom was still standing in the middle of the room, apparently waiting for
something.

“Why haven’t you left yet?” asked Arte. A fist pounded on the front door and
a menacing voice shouted for everyone inside to surrender while Goliath dragged
a large panel away from a hidden exit on the floor. Tom noted this development
without expression.

“I’m curious about the remote,” he said. “I want to see what the giant has up
his sleeve.” Goliath nodded solemnly as he ushered first Arte and then Cogwheel
down a slide-like shoot.

“This place is lost,” he said mournfully to the thief. The front door was
already being battered down as he clicked the button on the remote and the stone
gargoyle veneers outside burst apart, revealing the defensive robotic systems
underneath. Chaos broke out as they swiftly engaged the soldiers and Tom Stiletto
listened to it for a moment with a cocked ear, appreciatively, as if he were a musical
connoisseur evaluating a fine symphony.

“Well done,” was all he said as he casually saluted the empty space where
the giant had been last.

***

What followed next was many days of hectic uncertainty. The escape shoot
the three fugitives had slid down led to a long tunnel which eventually seemed to
stop at a dead end. Goliath then used the remote to activate a secret door that

opened out to another hallway. When everyone was on the other side, the giant
closed the hidden opening and collapsed the tunnel behind them. As the group
began to run once more, Arte started to wonder where exactly it was they’d ended
up. Only a few seconds later though she was amazed when the rusty industrial
corridor they were fleeing through turned into a crowded factory floor. There, at
least a hundred wizard serfs were engaged in the rapid conjuration and enchanting
of magical commodities along conveyer belt assembly lines. Few of these
indentured mages even noticed them as the group plunged through the heart of
their pandemonium but a tattoo-faced overseer did yell indignantly as they passed.
Goliath meanwhile led them as if he’d made this route before and they soon
hurried through another door which opened outside to a section of the city by the
seashore. Here the sun was setting over the water and, in the distance, the black
silhouette of one of the Lord Mayor’s drakes was patrolling the blazing sky as the
last of the daylight flowed out of it.

From there they managed to secure passage on a chattel barge headed up
the river Sybeles. While the phantasmal smoke from the ship’s coal engine wafted
over the river’s surface, Goliath divulged his plan to his two companions. The only
way they could rid themselves of Count Ptolemy and his henchmen for good was
to seek the aid of someone more powerful than him. This left them with one option
– Goliath had once made an emergency call to the palace of a cousin to the Lord
Mayor, Ambassador Melancholia, when one of the automatons in His Excellency’s
garden malfunctioned prior to a state soirée. What Goliath concealed in his plan
however was the fact that he’d never actually met the ambassador himself, only
their manservant, but he knew his friends needed hope to keep going so this gave
him enough sense of justification. As the group finished discussing things they
decided to head to their quarters for the night; Goliath trailing behind slightly.
Under the creaking floorboards of the barge’s deck he could hear the chained up
family of unicorns below and, like them, he too was trapped.

On the outskirts of the ambassador’s vast estates, the thriving town of
Caduceus Falls provided their natural disembarking point. Here the goods from the
vineyards, orchards, and animals the ambassador owned were sold off and shipped
out by caravans or transported down river. Being a busy hub of trade, artisans and
craft guilds had naturally also set up shops there; together creating a vital
commercial center where merchants from all cross the province, and even other
parts of the sister republics, would regularly come to purchase new inventory. As a

result, the streets of the town were quite busy; humanoids of limitless variety and
custom were to be found engaging in business and recreation on a regular basis.
One could just as easily come across groups of skin-dyed barbarian mercenaries
congregating in vulgar banter as one could elven monks slipping past silently in
downcast rows. There was also an energy pervading the place that held the promise
of great fortune and this wasn’t lost on Arte or Cogwheel as they waited for Goliath
outside an enchanter’s emporium.

“He’ll be back soon Mistress Arte,” assured Cogwheel.

“I’m not worried,” she replied while idly fidgeting with a knot she’d been
tying and untying all morning. “And you don’t have to call me that. Arte will do just
fine.” Cogwheel had been acting agitated ever since their narrow escape however
and a tendency towards formality was only one of the side effects.

“I’ll keep that in mind Mistress Arte,” he replied as he suspiciously glanced
around at the crowds of people going about with their day. Arte just shook her head
in acquiescence but a moment later her attention lifted from the rope she was
fiddling with as she eavesdropped on a pair of passing peasants.

“A cowls the thing,” said the fatter of the two with his arm around his
companion. “Can’t be much of a thief without a cowl.” The second peasant had his
doubts however.

“But ain’t that con – con – con – spicuous?” His friend furrowed his eyebrows.

“Course not! Never mind then. You’d best not tax that old pumpkin of yours.”
Here Goliath surprised his friends.

“I did it,” he said to Arte and Cogwheel as a few of the townspeople in the
vicinity gawked at his height.

“You spoke to the ambassador?” asked an incredulous Arte. The giant shook
his head.

“No, but I secured an audience through an intermediary. He’ll take us there
today.” It was Arte’s turn to be apprehensive now.

“You sure about this Goliath?” she whispered doubtfully.

“Yes,” was the giant’s immediate reply before this was followed by
qualifications. “I mean, I’m sure it’s our best course of action… at this moment…
given no other options. Listen, that wizard who came to the shop – he’s still looking
for us. So we don’t have a lot of time. I’m sorry Arte, I wish there was something
else I could do.” Goliath’s shoulders slumped slightly as he finished speaking and
when the android noticed this she reached out and caressed his arm.

“You’re doing a good job big guy. I’ll never be able to repay you for all that
you’ve done for me and, if you say we should do this, I trust you.” His heart swelling
with emotion, Goliath gently placed his hand over Arte’s. As he stuttered, trying to
do justice to her kindness, Cogwheel intervened.

“What you were saying master is time is scarce. Let’s go then before that
diabolical sorcerer catches up to us. The thought of seeing him again makes my
gears shiver.” Goliath promptly composed himself at the robot’s words and
directed Arte and Cogwheel to follow him. A few minutes later they approached
the tavern where the giant had arranged to meet the intermediary. Outside, a half-
devil beggar sitting on the ground sang to them insanely while they went by.

“Ifly ‘nd becausely, theref’re t’was quite wasly.” They ignored him as, one by
one, they entered the establishment. Inside it went about as bad as it could go.

The ogre Goliath had made his deal with was sitting at a table by the back
wall but, as soon as they got near him, Ptolemy’s minions rushed in and surrounded
them. This resulted in about two dozen huge soldiers in chainmail drawing swords
and muskets, so the three fugitives immediately surrendered. For a short spell the
entire tavern was reduced to a nervous hush but gradually the sinister humming of
a man rose from the quiet. Or not a man exactly.

“It was a nice little chase,” seethed a glaring Revery Starling. “To be honest
though, I found it all distinctly irritating. I guess I’ll have to punish you for that. With
cruelty.” Arte, despite thinking she understood the danger of her predicament
perfectly well, couldn’t refrain from a retort.

“You’re the worst. More dead inside than any machine. If you’d been an
android, you’d have been scrapped for being too un-lifelike.” The wizard laughed.

“Oh, I’m sure my creator regrets me. Too bad for him. But worse for you. Of
course I wouldn’t dare harm his Eminence’s special favorite. The object of all his…
doting. Your two friends however ARE MINE! How’d you like to see me take them
apart? I’m not sure if robots can scream. I know giants can though.” The wizard’s
ferocity overwhelmed Arte and her defiance evaporated. Revery Starling noted
how his words had crushed her, something he had seen in countless other victims
who’d dared to resist him, and he savored the wicked pleasure of it.

When all three of the fugitives were shackled, they were then led into the
streets, but here another surprise was waiting. Knights in gleaming silver armor
under a gold and ivory standard. Sixty or so. The ambassador’s own.

“What’s this?” snarled Revery Starling as magical energy began to build up
around his clawed fingers. “Let us pass!” But the knights didn’t move to get out of
his way. Instead, an intrepid looking paladin stepped forward, his stern eyes boring
into the wizard’s own unafraid, and he issued an ultimatum.

“On behalf of the lord of this land, Cyril Tyrus Adonai Melancholia, of the
noble house Autarcho: I, Captain Hasson, declare that you and your men are under
arrest in accordance with the Lord Mayor’s laws. Cast down your arms and submit
or be killed!” Revery Starling looked around uncertainly.

“On what grounds do you waylay us Captain?” spat the wizard.

“By direct order,” answered the leader of the knights, a gauntleted hand
pulling his sword out an inch from its sheath. The magic Revery Starling had been
channeling fizzled away.

“Very well,” the wizard conceded reluctantly. “Take us to the ambassador
and we shall sort this insult out. Don’t let those three escape though,” he
demanded, pointing to Goliath, Arte, and Cogwheel.

“You can keep an eye on them yourself sorcerer,” replied the captain.
“They’ll be coming too.”

Everyone parted deferentially before the magnificent group of knights as
they made their way through town and soon the company reached the gates of the
Melancholia estate. There the diligent sentries on duty let them pass after a brief
exchange with the captain and following this they continued on for several more
minutes before the ambassador’s palace emerged from a bucolic hillside. It was a
place of supreme decadence and the idle courtiers and aristocrats loitering around
the entrance gave them only cursory glances before returning to their discussions
of peerage gossip and the array of other trivial topics they indulged in to soothe
their smug boredom. Then, through echoing marble halls adorned with opulent
statues and frescos, Revery Starling and the three fugitives were eventually led to
a high-ceilinged room whose walls were painted blue and white with an array of
astrological glyphs. On either side of a dais, a few courtiers stood, and between
them sat the ambassador on his throne.

It was not the ambassador who spoke first however. Standing to his right, a
short plump man in a cerulean frock addressed the four new arrivals.

“The visitors will show their deference to His Excellency,” and they all bowed
or curtsied as best they could. Revery Starling, it must be said, did not look pleased.

“I hear you were conducting some kind of operation in my town Starling,”
drawled the ambassador. He was wearing a white embroidered doublet and a
white wig of curls; in fact, his shoes and breeches were also white and his face was
caked in white powder. His eyes however were discernably yellow and betrayed a
lifestyle of excess that few in the room could even imagine.

“I was retrieving the property of my master Your Excellency. It had all been
taken care of before your knights interrupted.” This reply irritated the ambassador
and he got to his feet.

“Is the Dear Count sovereign here? In my lands!” Revery Starling bowed
again, sincerely humbled this time.

“Forgive me Your Excellency.” The ambassador scrutinized the wizard for any
sign of insolence but found none.

“That I may or may not do,” he said at last.

Turning to his servant in the cerulean frock, one Secretary Umskull, the
ambassador launched into a brief dramatic utterance.

“Here I stand, in futile resistance, to the all-consuming tides of entropy.”
Secretary Umskull seemed unfazed by this declaration.

“Yes my lord,” was all he said. The ambassador then turned to his guests.

“For those of you who lack a gift for appreciating poetry, this means I am the
law. The law wizard! And here my will shall be done!” Revery Starling acknowledged
the truth of this with another bow but his cunning was also at work.

“And what of my master’s right to his property Your Excellency? What shall I
tell him of your law?” The ambassador’s eyes narrowed as he parried; “You’re
forgetting something wizard,” to which Revery Starlings replied, “I am Your
Excellency?”

The ambassador casually sat back on his throne. “Your master’s debts,” he
stated with a certain vicious enjoyment.

“But…” the wizard sputtered before being interrupted.

“I understand your confusion. Poor Ptolemy has so many debts. Umskull
though can clear things up for us. Umskull! How much does the count owe me?”

Umskull too was taking satisfaction in the situation. “Eighty thousand talents
my lord. Roughly.”

The ambassador’s taste for the theatrical gained full expression now as he
waved his hand in the air and spoke as if to the heavens themselves.

“Eighty thousand talents. Eighty! Thousand! So let us deduct a generous
amount for the girl. We’ll say, twice her worth. That’s six hundred. Now she is mine
and to the giant I give her, because I am generous. As for you wizard, you will take
your retinue back to your lord and remind him that he owes me seventy nine

thousand and four hundred talents! Or thereabouts! And tell him I’m tired of
sending out agents to remind him. Soon I will stop sending men with parchment to
do this and start sending men with daggers.”

The courtiers in the room were tittering as Revery Starling hung his head in
defeat. The wizard tried to mentally come to grips with what had just happened
but the persisting sound of the spectators enjoying his humiliation began to ignite
a rage inside him. He who was a master of the unnatural arts! Who commanded
primordial powers! That he should be subjected to this! It was unacceptable to give
these vermin victory. Somehow, through sheer instinct, they conspired together to
undo their betters. But he would not have it! No! They would regret what they’d
done to him. They would taste tragedy. With cold fury, the idea began to form in
his mind how he would make this happen. It was the girl! The girl if you could call
her that. He’d always disapproved of his master’s obsession with her and so his
anger converged without hesitation. With her destroyed the rest would all be
deprived as well. He knew he had only one chance though. Concealing his left hand
behind his back, he conjured a ball of lightning in it. Then with serpentine speed,
he flung it at Arte. She was standing farthest away from him though and before the
wizard’s missile reached her, Cogwheel threw themselves in its path. When it struck
the robot, the flash blinded the entire room.

***

A few days after the events at the palace, Goliath opened his new shop in
the affluent section of Caduceus Falls. The jeopardy was over. Revery Starling had
been locked up in the ambassador’s dungeon and Arte was safe.

“I guess everything worked out for you didn’t it giant?” intoned a familiar
voice to him one evening as he was alone, or so he thought, in the garage.

“I wouldn’t say that Tom,” said Goliath softly. Tom Stiletto appeared from
the shadows.

“It went better than you had any right to hope,” the thief insisted. Goliath’s
eyes remained focused on what was in front of him as he answered,

“You’re probably right. Did you have something to do with that?”

The thief sighed. “Well, I can’t take all the credit. Most of it, but not all. I
mean, I did send word to His Excellency that Ptolemy’s agents had set up an ambush
at a local tavern. Yet I imagine it was Umskull’s recounting of your previous
assistance that resulted in Arte being given to you.”

Goliath squirmed uncomfortably when Tom said this. “I set her free,”
divulged the giant. The thief shook his head.

“Why am I not surprised? And yet she’s still with you.”

Goliath couldn’t hide his smile as he confirmed this. “She is,” he said with a
happiness nearing awe. Even the thief, his feelings fortified in walls of irony, wasn’t
able to protect himself from the sudden pang of warmth that stabbed him.

“Is she in the other room? Getting you tea?” Tom asked facetiously.

Goliath turned with a quizzical look on his face. “Yes,” he answered sincerely,
pausing partly from confusion.

Tom Stiletto shook his head. “I think that’s my cue to leave. I got some petty
revenge against a nobleman who killed one of my partners and I inadvertently
assisted in your distinctly saccharine ending. So much the better. Don’t expect we’ll
run into each other any time soon. Goodbye giant.”

As the thief turned to leave however, Goliath called out to him. “Wait. How’d
you find us? Here in Caduceus Falls.”

The thief stopped and smirked. “The same way I stumbled across you before.
Following the wizard.” Goliath wasn’t satisfied with this though.

“And how did he…” the giant asked before trailing off. The thief’s shrug
silenced him. Then Tom Stiletto was gone, taken completely by the darkness. It
would have to be enough, Goliath supposed. It almost was. Taking up his welding
gun, he got back to work. Around him the broken pieces of his best friend waited;
ready to be brought back together, ready to live again once the bright arc had
finished.

HUNTING ORCS

[His Letter]

To the Esteemed Martha Summers,

I am being so forward in writing to you because of a recent adventure of
mine which, as chance would have it, coincides with one of the topics of
conversation we shared that marvelous night I had the pleasure of meeting you. I
am referring in fact to the matter of Orcs. Now normally I would never dwell on
such a brutish topic with a lady of your refinement but you are a woman of
exceptional scientific proclivities and I trust you will find my experiences quite
stimulating in that regard. To be sure, my journey was not all academic and, if I
indulge in a few tangential asides and remarks, it is only out of the hope that you
will derive a share of pleasure from this.

Going back to begin my story, it was several weeks since the gala your
parents held (And please thank them again for me) when a discussion I had in
passing with an acquaintance on Equestrian Row brought to my attention the
person of Cinnabar Morte. In fact it was the last Friarsday of Juvenas; I remember
distinctly because I was settling my monthly accounts and having a profitable time
of it. Anyways, what I learned was that this Mr. Morte, a flintlock-for-hire of
uncouth but distinguished reputation, was in dire need of a last minute loan. Miss
Summers, I cannot tell you why but for some reason I sensed a magnificent

opportunity unfolding here and, understanding his offices to be in my vicinity, I
immediately hastened to call on him. Let me add, when I arrived the gentleman
was in a state of exceptional agitation and didn’t have the faintest inclination to
speak with me until I finally blurted out that his financial woes could very presently
be solved if he would just stop growling and listen. Thereupon his manners
improved immensely and I proceeded to tell him I was someone of not
inconsiderable means who was interested in his predicament. This he shared, albeit
reluctantly, and I will do my best to quote him:

“It’s Coxcomb eh? Well, I never ‘erd of you but I suppose that attires dapper
enough to give you some bit of credit. Mind you yer not some slick swindler type
but, seeing as ‘ow I’ve precious little options at the moment, ‘ere’s the gist. I
secured a contract wit’ a Captain Wysler Heems of the Animatite Mining Syndicate
to depop (by this he meant depopulate) an orc ‘ive festerin’ not more than three
miles away from their northern most operations. Being as I’m expected ready to go
there tomorrow’s evening, while ‘aving got the news this morning the supplies I
needed be residing now at the bottom of Sabers Inlet courtesy of a foin lot o’
brigands, my er’lier surliness is surely quite appreciable.” As he wearily exhaled and
allowed the flush that had been building in his face to subside, I could not help but
feel swept up with sympathy for the man.

“Perfectly appreciable,” I concurred. Yes, I would definitely help him. After
all, generosity repays itself and it sounded like his predicament, as it is with most
in life, was easily fixed by money.

“So, if you had the funds, you could secure the items you require? Even so
late?” Mr. Morte, who at the end of his outburst had gone from pacing back and
forth to sitting slumped in his desk, looked up at me now with a weary gleam of
hope.

“Aye, and at an extra penny you can be sure,” he noted with disgust.

“How much are we talking about?” I asked. His head tilted slightly like a fox
investigating a baited trap. Finally he decided on an amount he believed wouldn’t
horrify me and cleared his throat.

“A half talent of silver ought to cover it.”

I did my best not to show any amusement on my face as I replied, “Mr.
Morte, I will write you a promissory note for that amount right now, using which
you can withdraw said silver from my bank forthwith, provided only that you agree
to some simple terms.” He said hardly anything at all as I detailed the conditions of
the loan, including a gentle interest rate and payment plan which would, at most,
yield me a modest profit. With quill in hand, I was just beginning to prepare the
contract when he sensed I was still holding something back.

“That’s not all though eh?” There’s a further imposition you’ve got fer me.”
I paused and smiled.

“Nothing so onerous my good man,” I said confidently as I at last decided to
broach the matter. “Only I intend for you to take me with you… on the expedition.”
His eyes narrowed and I imagine his mind was clambering around the idea like a
squirrel in a cage, looking for some flaw in it, when suddenly he threw a question
at me.

“You ever seen a wild orc?” he asked.

“No,” I replied.

“Ever ‘erd ‘em ‘owl?” I shook my head.

“Smelt one?” I scoffed.

“Obviously not,” said I. At this he leaned back, feeling himself no longer at
quite the disadvantage.

“Well, you’ll wish you ‘adn’t.”

We met just before dawn the next day in the Port District. Each of us had
gone away separately in a frenzy to prepare ourselves only to meet again a few
hours later and find each other transformed; I on foot in my old lieutenant’s
uniform with a sundry laden rucksack and him, seated at the helm of a wagon, clad
in a leather and chainmail outfit I can only imagine coming out of some sort of
mercenary catalogue. In fact, it has just this minute occurred to me that I have yet

to describe for you the general appearance of Mr. Morte and I will, with apologies,
rectify that immediately. The most conspicuous thing about the man was the
utterly bald top of his head, ringed on both sides by outwardly jutting tuffs of red
hair. Being myself five feet ten inches on an average day, and so having about two
inches on him in that respect, I had a chance to peer at the man very closely in this
regard and cannot overemphasize the exceptional contrast between these two
regions of his head. Across which the next feature of great distinguishment is a scar
running from his upper forehead, past his left eye, to the edge of his cheek. He told
me he received it from an elf’s axe on the southern continent and of this I have no
doubt. The scar is not so blemishing as it might otherwise be however since, as an
outdoorsman and individual of undoubtedly peasant stock, his skin is swarthy and
weather beaten from constant exposure to the sun. His eyes meanwhile have an
icy look to them, glacial I’d say, and tend to bulge as his temper flares. Despite the
latter being a fairly common occurrence, I must concede that he is more amicable
than not and flashes with equal alacrity a large toothy grin (among which one, on
his lower right jaw, is gold) I will say nothing of his ears and nose other than that
they would go unremarked on a dwarf and, in conclusion, I shall just add that he is
stout, brawny, and prone to gesticulating in moments of eloquence. Indeed, this is
the man I was about to brave several days of harrowing ordeals with, although at
the time the thought of facing serious peril had yet to enter my horizons.

But now I’ve gotten ahead of myself. Returning to where I left off in my story,
Mr. Morte’s wagon then took us out of a waking city bustling with morning traffic
and we made excellent speed all the way to Obelisk Junction where we quietly
diverted to a rather shabby cobblestone road that leads out to the Quarry District.
I believe it was around this time that the conversation of my companion and I
turned to the subject of the lone steed pulling our vehicle; a black pegasus that was
certainly once a majestic beast but now suffered from the defect of two mangled
wings it could do no more than flap in moments of impatience. Obsidian he called
it. I’ll admit I was eager to hear the tragic details of this noble creature’s past and,
pressing him for more, I was informed that it had previously belonged to a prince
from the far off duchy of Zuerfuhn who’d died gallantly in a pitched midair battle.
During one of the crusades several years back as I remember. The animal
unfortunately had not been so lucky as his master, crashing into a village of serfs
where he somehow survived to remain permanently ruined and spend the next few
years being cruelly yoked to a plow. One who had once led the charges of shining
hosts! That period in vulgar custody also took a further toll and by the time Mr.

Morte chanced upon him during a recent journey, the stallion was a grim soul to
be sure. My companion was rather vague about the matter in one respect though;
that is, how he actually acquired Obsidian but, sensing a reef that could potentially
wreck the frigate of our partnership, I did not inquire further. Instead a faintly sad
silence befell us both and I took the opportunity to turn my attention to the
untamed countryside where, despite growingly insidious appearances I, for a long
while, saw nothing more fearsome than some robins. However, let me assure you
that the land is quite savage out there and the absence of crossing other travellers
naturally emphasized the spectre of foreboding. Although I’m not sure that any
civilized person would want to meet the sort of cutthroats likely to frequent those
parts of the world.

Shall I continue? Fair Martha, if only I were speaking with you now. I haven’t
had the slightest excuse to call upon you however so I can only do my best to stir
your favor with a few paltry words by a man more business minded than poetical.
This story then, such as it is, will have to suffice. Let’s see, I just left off at the part
where we were in the midst of a wagon ride that remained uneventful up until we
came to the threshold of our destination. Here the terrain began to slope
downwards and a valley through the trees opened into view but, it was a sense of
being watched rather, that caught my immediate focus. Peering around, it did not
take long for me to see her and, as our eyes met, a chill went through my body.

“To your left,” I whispered to Mr. Morte and soon enough he saw her too; a
great mother of dread, a harpy. She was perched at the ridge of a small sheer cliff
some forty yards away and a freshly killed adult deer was clutched in her hind
talons. I will not relay too thoroughly the gruesomeness of the scene but, suffice it
to say, she had made an absolute mess of her poor victim and had only stopped in
her carnage to freeze at our approach.

“Deuce’s rod!” blasphemed Mr. Morte. “There’s a floi’ing witch as big as any
I’ve ever seen!” By superlative hearing and comprehension or uncanny coincidence
I cannot say but immediately after my companion uttered his remark, the harpy
bared a dagger-drawer mouth of teeth at us. Luckily Obsidian took no notice (I’d
hate to think what might have happened if he’d startled) but I did observe Mr.
Morte do a blind check with his hand of the blunderbuss rifle racked against the
seat between us. Previously I’d been somewhat wary of it due to the thinking it
might accidentally be discharged, Mr. Morte like myself did occasionally partake of

tobacco after all, but now its nearness was hugely reassuring. Circumstances
however did not yet veer towards calamity; that was still to come. Instead, us and
the monster persisted in our opposing vigils until our descent into the valley
separated us by welcome trees. I was inclined to swing into a joyful spirit at our
brief flirtation with real danger but one look at the grizzled warrior on my left and
I was struck sober.

For a while the clatter of our jostling carriage was all that could be heard and
then I listened to the man beside me mutter, ever so darkly, “Not the best omen.
No. A bloody bad one.”

His assertion would swiftly be proved right. The screeching and shudder of
firearms greeted us first but then the shouting and snarling of the combatants
joined in the cacophony. It is no exaggeration Miss Summers if I tell you that we
arrived to witness the purest mayhem. At the forward outpost of the Syndicate
Guard, a raiding party of the foulest orcs imaginable was lunging about with iron
swords and axes as they tried to push through the pike and trench fortifications
separating them from a small wooden castle manned by some rough looking
human defenders. The guard was holding them off but at considerable cost and this
despite the advantage of not only two cannons and ample muskets but also
crossbows, alchemical bombs, and the solid log walls of a station some fifteen feet
high. My word! There were men fighting with these brutes steel to iron, blade
clanging against blade at the foot of their besieged citadel while the hiss and twang
of missiles split the air between sizzling roars of gunpowder. We did not stop our
advance either and, the closer we got, the better my view of orcs gurgling as they
were run through and stalwart bands of men closing ranks against onslaughts to
protect wounded comrades being escorted off the field. It was all blood and grime
and smoke, torrent in a whirl of noise that would dumbfound anyone of purely
refined sensibilities. Though not wholly unacquainted with the violence in our
world, I will say I was shocked. Appalled even. Before I could think to do it first
though, it was Mr. Morte, handing me the reins to undaunted Obsidian, who
grabbed the ready blunderbuss next to him and I.

Aiming it for an arcing shot at the back of a bearskin clad orc some sixty yards
away (By my estimate) he flung a quick word at me, “Ere’s yer silver goin’ to work
Mr. Coxcomb,” and then lit the rifle’s fuse with a flint. Three seconds later my ears
exploded but I watched with remarkable clarity as a cinder shower of molten pellets

and sparks launched into the air and then descended in a splash directly on top of
the chosen target. Even in the prevailing clamor, the scream of this particular orc
demanded attention and several of the combatants could not help but watch as
the villain ran around ablaze for a moment and then proceeded to melt, yes melt,
I say that with total accuracy, into a bubbling puddle of charred goo. This of course
had a most desirable effect on the attackers and they, hesitantly at first but then
whole heartedly, broke into a disorganized retreat. I specifically recall what one of
them shouted as they ran away too.

“Make fast feet you humpers! Those mens got a new big nasty now!” His
guttural lament was then rapidly succeeded by cheers and huzzahs from the guard.

We did not have long to bask in our victory however. Captain Heems showed
up almost immediately and he ordered his soldiers to do a sweep of the battlefield
(Twenty three dead on their side, seven on ours) and then took myself and Mr.
Morte aside along with his own man, Lieutenant Secretary Corkly. Unsurprisingly
the captain was an impressive figure. The tallest of us all by several inches, he was
a man probably in his early fifties with impeccably groomed silver hair and a silver
handlebar mustache under his protruding crag of a nose. Square shouldered and
rigid in posture, he filled out his blue and gold-trimmed uniform with the utmost
certainty in himself and always moved about with a brisk forceful energy. His pale
blue eyes though were tinged at times with wistfulness (For what I could not say)
and he had the habit of periodically staring at things in silence without explanation.
Also of note was that his right arm had been amputated up to his elbow during a
campaign early in his career and in its place was a black mechanical surrogate with
a solid fist-shaped hand that was only capable of punching and clenching. The
machine was as admirable as you’d hope but it could sometimes demand more
than its fair share of audience by whirring its gears or shooting out jets of steam.
The person of Corkly conversely could not have been constituted in a manner less
inclined to scrutiny; he was desperate, I must say, to be as unobtrusive as possible
and this was rather sorrowful since the captain availed himself of every chance he
got to shove his secretary into the spotlight. A relentless ordeal that could however
produce no effect on the young man as he remained stooped, listless, hush, and
indecisive. His face moreover reminded me of a juvenile chimpanzee I once saw in
a zoo, an ape kept in a cage only with penguins oddly enough, and I had to resist
the urge more than once to toss a scrap of food at the boy.

During the initial encounter with the two men, it was the captain of course
who took the lead in conversation and he began by addressing Mr. Morte.

“Cinnabar! By the heavenly blazes! You’re always late to the party but you
bring the best wine!” My companion reached out to accept an offered handshake
from the captain as he retorted,

“Captain, if you didn’t ‘old yer revels so far out to nowhere, maybe I’d be
e’rly on occasion.” The two mirrored each other with a laugh before Mr. Morte
continued.

“To be ‘onest, I wasn’t sure I’d make it. Rather ugly luck in obtainin’ my
provisions if I may say. It seems yer lads in the city warders are ‘aving a ‘ard time of
it wit’ the criminal element this season.” Heems spat on the ground in solidarity.

“Oh! And it rattles my boilers!” he concurred. “Once I pulverize the lot of
vermin here, the deity knows I’ll be descending on the city with sword in hand. And
I did hear about that spot of jolly bad business you had from this morning’s courier
but there was nothing I could do out here. Surprised you made it actually! Yes! And
you’re not alone?” Mr. Morte gave me a pat on the back as he explained.

“This is Mr. Homer Coxcomb, the last minute investor ‘oo salvaged our
immin’nt orc culling enterprise. Wanted to see the money spent too.” Captain
Heems nodded at Mr. Morte and then turned to me.

“Rather I see it’s lieutenant Coxcomb,” he said and I saluted him out of
instinct. He returned my salute before removing his navigator’s hat and banging
the dust off it against his thigh.

“Experienced any combat lad?”

I shrugged apologetically. “Sir, I was in a logistical unit.”

He restored his hat to his head and his mechanical arm sounded a loud clank
as he did. “Well, keep in mind that plenty of the dead out here rot in the woods.
Don’t be mucking off on your own and have a blade ready with you at all times.”

I needed no convincing in this matter and responded with an appreciative “I
shall sir.”

Captain Heems then furrowed his brow and looked over at Corkly who was
rummaging through a satchel of scrolls and binders. “That reminds me,” he barked.
“Some of the men just now went into the damnable fray without even fixing their
bayonets! Get the sergeants on it at once!” Corkly however made no sign that he’d
heard the order and the captain continued with rapidly mounting disgust. “Corkly?
Corkly! Wizards beards man! Don’t just stand there blinking! You’ve been given an
order! An orrrrrder!” Some papers Corkly was holding in a folder slipped out and
flopped around his feet.

“Can you repeat it sir?” he asked with total innocence. Miss Summers, I will
spare you the substance of the epic profanity that ensued from Captain Heems but,
as he thundered on and on, an orc archer suddenly stood up from behind a nearby
mound and fired a wobbly arrow at us. This landed about five feet away and while
three of our group reacted as any decent people would, the captain merely glanced
over in annoyance before scowling at an attendant squad of soldiers and pointing
at the insolent party. True, orcs have notoriously poor aim, but this does attest to
the sheer nerve of the gentleman.

As we then proceeded to enter the wooden castle we’d been standing next
to, Mr. Morte and the Captain spoke at length while I listened by their side and
Corkly trailed behind. A competent looking corporal had taken the reins of our
wagon from us so I was able to divide my interest entirely between the
conversation of the two men and the interior sights of the outpost.

Some soldiers were unloading crates of munitions as we passed by and I
couldn’t help but grin a bit as the captain shouted “Make an effort! If you can!” He
was a marvellously tempestuous personality and even in the rising tide of our
predicament his gusto proved infectious. I was therefore in a state of genuine
exuberance when we reached the captain’s tent and he sat Mr. Morte and myself
down on some stools to enjoy an evening brandy.

“Cinnabar,” he sighed as he leaned back in his own seat. “Endlessly weeding
this miserable garden they’ve got out here is such an exhausting and inglorious way

to finish things. I should be out east, raising cities, instead of squandering my last
few good years against monstrosities and widowing subhumans.”

Mr. Morte gave the captain a sympathetic glance and then took a moderate
sip from his drink. “The stars circle and we try to make the best of it ey?” he said,
after preceding this with a deeply satisfied ahhh. “As a military man captain,
per’aps you should look at it loik a military situation. Ask yerself, ‘oo’s the enemy
and ‘ow do you destroy ‘em.”

Captain Heems swirled his glass thoughtfully. “The enemy,” he hissed, “is
bureaucracy. How do you slay bureaucracy?”

Said question was hitched to an imploring stare at both of us but Mr. Morte
spoke first. “Can’t. A dragon eater that is.”

I was confused however so I sought clarification on something. “Captain
Heems, sir, please pardon my asking but why can’t you eliminate your problems in
a proactive offensive?”

The captain here leaned over and topped up both mine and Mr. Morte’s
glasses. “Because I have been commanded lieutenant,” and he said these words
with weariness, “To do nothing else but guard the immediate mining operations as
a result of the calculus by men so far on high that I don’t even know their names.
Besides, given my limited resources, I can’t afford to sacrifice a huge chunk of my
men just to save myself from the odd green-skin attack. Unlike you two, I have
things other than orcs to vex me. Subterranean things.”

Neither of us asked what he meant by that but it was clear the captain had
difficulties that were beyond our assistance. The modest service we would provide
though was indeed of his own initiative, an attempt to keep the orcs from becoming
a real threat, and towards that purpose our discussion now turned. Much of what
was said in the course of this you’d no doubt find rather tiresome so I will gloss over
the part where we delved into the blander aspects of our venture and move on to
when we were all decided.

“Wit’ the failure of their raid today,” Mr. Morte was saying, “The orcs ‘ill be
out makin’ a nuisance of themselves in the surroundin’ areas for the next day or

so.” (A tendency of orcs when thwarted or otherwise humiliated is to go rampaging
about in search of compensatory victims, including even tiny wild creatures like
rabbits and frogs; but here at last I am making good on my promise of providing
information with scientific merit) “We’ll ‘ave to wait a few days then before Mr.
Coxcomb and I go on our reconnaissance. Best too that we make our approach by
a wide arc from the west, which’ll add another day or so to the business, and then
set up a blind in them trees at the mountain’s foot.”

Captain Heems had, quite painfully, succeeded in gesturing at Corkly for a
map and this was spread out on an elegant varnished table where Mr. Morte was
pointing at details most adeptly.

“All ‘n all,” he concluded, “I say we’ll ‘ave the job done in two weeks at most,
a’suming fair we’ther an’ no catastrophes.”

The captain seemed satisfied. “Gentleman,” he intoned, “We’ve got
ourselves a plan. My confidence in its success could not be higher. That said,
protocols insist we indulge the tedious matter of signing your liability waivers so,
let’s get that out of the way – shall we? – and then offer a toast to our forthcoming
triumph.” Yes Martha, even in the bowels of primitive nature, civilized men are still
ruled by an abiding fear of lawyers. Naturally I would not think to disparage the
syndicate myself, deity forbid, since it is no more than prudence of the most
practical kind, but being the one signing the papers and putting my seal to wax, I
could not help but entertain some of the more pessimistic scenarios my
imagination now devised. The brandy helped though. Astonishing us all then was
secretary Corkly who, in a rare moment of inspiration, had overheard his superior
mentioning the waivers and produced them without being asked. The three of us
stared at him dumbfounded but he made no further display of newly discovered
intelligence and instead seemed to retreat into a private world of musings where
he smirked at things incomprehensible to ordinary mortals. Captain Heems’
bewilderment only lasted a few seconds however before he patted his breast
pockets, stood, and then patted those of his pants. Finding nothing, he turned to
his secretary.

“Corkly?” he inquired and then waved his hand in front of the young man’s
face. Receiving no response, he briefly looked at us and marvelled, “Does he even
speak modernese?” before erupting with “Maybe I’d fair better with moon talk!”

That was not the end of it though and I hope I won’t mortify you if I relay what he
shouted with vulgarities intact this time. “By the scaly chickens! A dung fondling
idiot and all it took was five years at the academy! Corkly! How do you not forget
to breathe!? Your mam must’ve half-drowned you coming out the fleshy gates
because it’s beyond me how anything that doesn’t drag its head along the ground
could have a skull as dense as yours! A positive horror man! If you ever figure out
how to reproduce, the world above will fall from the sky!” Mr. Morte and I said
nothing as we drank politely in silence and waited to sign our documents.

Accommodations at the outpost did not prove comfortable but were recalled
during the days that followed as luxurious in comparison. I did my honest best to
make the time of our interval a profitable one by studying a book on our prey and
reading recent entries in the incidents catalogue. When the hour came to depart
then I was once more fresh with zeal and eagerly set out on foot with Mr. Morte
and two scouts after a brief goodbye with Obsidian (I confess I had grown fond of
the animal) This occurred a fair while before dawn since our journey had been
calculated to reach the location for our blind well in advance of when the orc hive
would likely be up for excursions (Orcs are not often known to be active outside
before the late afternoon unless otherwise provoked) Mr. Morte and myself
sweated under our heavy packs as our escorts focused on spying ahead for danger
but, other than a few grisly carcasses, nothing much concerning intruded on our
hike. To the contrary, there’s stupendous beauty in the scenery of the region,
making the orc presence even more of a shame since their habitation inevitably has
a ghastly effect over time. Indeed, they strip the land bare and so we have reason
to be grateful then that the mining syndicate happens to be the custodian of that
area. I firmly believe Miss Summers that, through the inherent nobility of industry,
we will one day tame both continents and civilize even the very elements
themselves. Magic, for all its immense powers, has shown itself too elusive and
ineffable to be given this responsibility and so we must turn to engineering and
economy if we are to ever bestow on mankind the paradise it has so long deserved.
And this adventure with the orcs, though modest in scope, is still an infinitesimal
part of that glorious enterprise, sharing in the new spirit that is now elevating our
species above all else in creation.

Out in the cruelty of the wilds however I’ll admit my concerns were rather
more inclined to basic immediacies and so it was with quiet relief that I greeted our
decision that day to finally stop for a late lunch (At the height of noon!) “What do

hardy adventuring types eat when about on their quests?” you might ask. I shall tell
you with relish (But, no, there was none of that) Each of us had one boiled egg, one
porcine sandwich on rye with pungeous cheese and pickles, brittlish crackers with
alder marmalade, some blood soaked squash, slices of larded mice, and a dram per
man of gnome-brewed whiskey that would peel the skin off the back of your throat.
That is to say, we had a sensible modern meal right out in the middle of the ruthless
unknown. Afterwards the four of us indulged in a nice short chat, mostly comprised
of circumlocutive inanities, and then, because we were within minutes of the
threshold of the hive, our escorts said their farewells and left. Mr. Morte and myself
were now completely on our own.

Huffing and trudging with our loaded backs, we made directly for the nearby
woods that were at this point the only thing left obscuring the orcs’ settlement
from view. Pushing first through an outer ring of thorny brush, we now crouched
as we went about (At an agonizingly slow pace) between the crowded trunks of
timber looming imposingly above. Zigging and zagging as we moved because the
descending ground had become steep and uneven, I followed behind Mr. Morte in
duressed silence as I listened to him give a spontaneous performance in whispers
of the most impious oaths imaginable. Truly, I pity any wee forest soul who
overheard these! Our awkward plight was paused though when my companion
finally stopped at the base of one of the few especially tall trees and decided it was
adequate for our purposes. Taking several minutes there to organize himself, he
donned an assortment of climbing necessities before speaking to me in regards to
our ensuing course of action.

“Ere we are Mr. Coxcomb wit’ the ‘ole vertical part of the business. ‘Ope yer
not afraid of ‘eights.” I shook my head, having done some youthful mountaineering
during a leisure year. Nonetheless I was almost awed by the climbing prowess of
my counterpart. I cannot help but beam now at the memory of him; he was a
splendid menace going up that tree. With nothing other than cinches and cleats,
he was a good fifty feet up it in less time than it takes the average person to prepare
themselves a morning cup of tea. There he unfurled a rope to me and, one by one,
he hauled up the bags I tied for him. When this was done, the pressure then fell on
me to join him but I acquitted myself admirably enough and soon we were sitting
together on adjacent branches, our feet dangling in the air. To the top it was more
of the same and no noteworthy incidents occurred although we were once again
breathing heavily by the time we finally got there. Stolen thrones! And what a vista

it was! Despite still having plenty of foliage to disguise us, we could gaze for miles
at everything beyond; a vast portion of the Sybeles river was laid out before our
eyes with a plentiful accompaniment of plunging canyon and towering natural
stele. Such a sight a romantic eye could not endure without a tear and one was
ready to trickle down from mine when my stare lowered and fell upon the more
immediate travesty blemishing the land. Miss Summers, I don’t know if you’ve ever
seen illustrations of the termite nests they have on the southern continent but, if
you have, picture those great mounds of spoiled earth, magnify them to cathedral
proportions, and then perforate these with an abundance of dim foreboding holes
and litter the ravaged wasteland that shores them all with a piled sea of bones.
Several of these, clustered together, are what wild orcs call home.

Of the ingenuity of my companion I have said nothing so far, since he did not
display it with any great regularity but, I will credit him abundantly for the
observation platform he constructed for us. Said blind consisted first of a metal ring
enclosed around the mast of the tree that was then augmented with rope-threaded
metal poles that extended radially in eight directions after being attached to the
aforementioned ring (By inserting them into its available slots) Then, using more
rope, he wove a web through the poles and branches that provided a base layer for
further additions of netting and cloth. By the end of it we had a nest eight feet in
diameter with a canopy overhead and these, combined with the woolen cocoon
sacks we slept and waited in, made the other discomforts just bearable. Among
them it was not so much boredom (Since studying the orcs from afar yielded its
own amusements) but the sheer physical confinement of the situation which most
sorely tested the will. After all, we did not risk going down even during the orcs
dormant periods for fear of leaving behind some clue that would alert them to our
presence. As such we remained, for a good string of days, entirely in our tree even,
and I’m dreadfully sorry for saying this but it’s essential to understanding the
ordeal, even in matters of our physiological evacuations. A ghastly surprise it will
be to the next man who climbs up there and finds all the mysterious dangling
canisters we left behind! (For we could leave no trace of ourselves below) Ah! The
ugliness we must undertake sometimes to do good.

You may be wondering why we did not simply go about killing every hapless
orc we could and instead spent so much effort for the opportunity to spy on these
pestilent creatures. I will have to quote Mr. Cinnabar Morte himself to assist me
here.

“Ya can’t jus’ go murderin’ about wit’ ‘em. Well, you may, but it won’t do
much. Nah. If wot yer truly after is to kill as many orcs as ya can, the best way’s ta
find out ‘oo’s ‘oo among ‘em. Off a few of the roight ones an’ the resultin’ furor, as
they try to decide ‘oo’s the new big meanie an’ ‘oo gets to be ‘is chosen bullies, will
lead to so much carnage you’ll be laughin’ while leanin’ back wit’ yer legs crossed.”

A sound strategy, don’t you agree? I certainly thought so. Therefore we
began our great orc watch and it was in this that I made my chiefest contribution
to the whole endeavor. Not only did my inclusion make uninterrupted observation
of the orcs possible but my journalistic stamina and acumen turned out to be
pivotal to our success. I can say with utter sincerity that by the fifth day of our vigil,
my knowledge of orcs had eclipsed completely the sources I had invested myself in
back at the outpost. Let me tell you about these orcs Martha because, as odious as
they are, there is a great deal more that is curious in them than you might believe.
Using no more than a telescope and eavesdropping horn, here are the discoveries
I made. Not only do orcs have names (We all know this) but they change names
regularly. This results from some incident or other transpiring which causes a group
of orcs to rename one of their members. Think of it like nicknames, only for orcs
that’s as far as naming goes. During our time in the nest I personally witnessed one
young orc undergoing two name changes; first he was Lard Head, on account of
being slow and disproportionate even by orc standards, then he became Beg Leg
when he tried pleading for a bite from the last piece of a freshly dismembered elk,
and at last he was reduced to No Ears after making the disastrous mistake of
ignoring the orders of a much larger orc. I was surprised actually how many wild
orcs speak a crude patois version of modernese. Mr. Morte explained to me that
it’s largely the result of press-ganged orc laborers being re-released at the end of
their respective enterprises and I’ve also heard that orc mercenaries and the like
play a part too in spreading this scrap of civilization. Orcs will furthermore trade
with their unscrupulous or desperate human counterparts, desiring mainly guns,
alcohols, helmets, shiny trinkets, musical instruments (Oddly enough) and livestock
in exchange for furs, ore, and the occasional distinctly orcish knickknack; but I’m
not sure why anyone would want such grotesquery for their own. By the way, orcs
also have their own language, Urk, that sounds very much like slobbering
gobbledygook but which, and it’s been insisted to me, supposedly provides some
form of communication between them. Fascinating no?

And as I implied earlier, spying on the green-skins could actually provide all
sorts of levity. In fact, it was nearing dusk on the seventh day of our watch when a
delightfully barbaric drama played itself out among our targets. Perhaps three
dozen orcs were loitering about their hive while engaging in the usual pastimes of
brawling, hooting, tumbling about, molesting bonfires, showing off their physical
or plundered assets, and mangling anything not under the protection of another
orc that looked like it might provide fun in the act of being broken. I do not mean
to suggest that these are their only preoccupations, since I also saw them at times
making crafts, forging iron weapons, and chiseling their infamously crude stone
totems, but on a typical evening orcs are more procrastinatory than not. As I was
saying, that day our orcs were larking about like mad when two who had left several
hours earlier came running out of a small copse of trees located across from us on
the other side of the hive. They explained nothing as many of their tribe greeted
them with indignant shouting, preferring instead to dive into the nearest hive holes
they could find, when the reason why suddenly became apparent as a massive
adolescent troll (A good sixteen feet tall I’d say and as bulky as a bull elephant)
crashed into their midst. Of course the orcs took umbrage at this but since the
biggest in the hive was no more than six feet and maybe four hundred pounds
(Admittedly pure muscle that one) and their chief wasn’t present to rally them with
insults, the surprised orcs understandably shattered into chaos.

“Not the one! Not me!” Bent Knives wailed before a swat from the troll sent
him flying in cartwheels through the air.

“Arrrrrrggg!” screamed Hard Skull as he leapt at the troll’s feet to do some
desperate chopping with a hatchet, only to have the veracity of his moniker
disproven by a retaliatory stomp. A commendable number of orcs did in fact brave
the troll outright but, in its rage, the titan was a deluge of pure violence none of
them could withstand.

“We might quickly be made superf’luous Mr. Coxcomb!” chuckled Mr. Morte
as we watched the annihilation then underway, but he hadn’t even finished
speaking these words when I caught sight of Was Dead.

Now this Was Dead happened to be the most interesting orc of the lot. Unlike
his comrades, he was prone to bouts of silence and intense staring which I attribute
to the event for which he was known; as best as I could piece together, this involved

him being skewered quite thoroughly in a raid on a bandit camp, where he ended
up being left as a corpse in a ditch by the road, and then him walking back to his
hive on his own the next day. Indeed, he was disturbingly perceptive that one. Miss
Summers, have you ever seen a cat studying something on a high shelf, looking for
a way to get to it? That’s the feeling Was Dead gave me when I caught him, yes him,
looking at other orcs. Oh! It gives me a shiver, the thought of a smart orc and in
regards to the troll he certainly demonstrated his ruthless cunning. You see, Was
Dead’s favorite spot was always on a small elevated plateau protruding from one
of the hive mounds. Here he would spend most of his time stirring a large cast-iron
cauldron he used to make stews and potions in. And likewise, that was where he
was when the troll showed up that day. Whereupon he did quickly duck behind said
cauldron but, there he stayed, watching events unfold until the troll came near
enough and he hoisted the cauldron above him in a ferocious burst of strength and
proceeded to leap on top of the troll, jamming the upside-down cauldron over his
head. Blinded and bewildered, the troll reacted first by stumbling around
backwards as it tried fiendishly to shake off its obstruction and all while Was Dead
still clung to one of the cauldron’s stumpy legs, himself swinging around the whole
time by a single hand. Fortuitously he let go before the troll started to claw and
beat at the cauldron with its fists. Not yet satisfied though, Was Dead rushed to
grab a half-glowing log from a bon fire and then ran under the troll and rammed
the hot end of this into the most painful place you can imagine. The troll howled
like a monstrous living bell and other orcs, finally catching on, joined Was Dead with
flaming implements of their own. Writhing on the ground as the withering attack
mounted, it was only by impossible luck that the troll managed to get its head free
and careen clear in an utterly terrorized retreat while a growing swarm of jeering
orcs swiftly followed behind.

Whew! I trust this last torrent of orc related esoterica gives you a sufficient
portrait of them now. Mr. Morte and I were certainly approaching satisfaction at
this point so that evening, as the shadow of the moon brought on another night,
we discussed which orcs we had to remove. Grim Eye, their chief, was too obvious
to merit anything more than a cursory mention but we were also almost entirely in
agreement when it came to the other selections of Lug Bones, Dark Howl, Tall One,
Huge Nose, and Blood Chug. As it was, this list failed to included Big Woe, the
largest of them I mentioned earlier, but that was because he was a rather solitary
brute and we felt there was a good chance that in the frenzy we were hoping to
spark, he would be the cause of fatality among many of his kin. No, our point of

polite disagreement was in regards to Was Dead. I thought he was the most
worrisome of the bunch and wanted him eliminated but Mr. Morte seemed
strangely puzzled by the idea and eventually I relented. Knowing we had a busy day
ahead of us, and no longer obsessing over the goings on around the hive, we
decided to risk sleeping without sentry shifts and settled in for the night. I was
already drowsy so I likely fell asleep first but we were no doubt both comfortably
dreaming when, just before dawn, the swinging of an axe against the trunk of our
tree woke us. Had we been found! It seemed the only explanation but we did not
immediately do anything. I must have appeared especially disgruntled for a minute
because Mr. Morte looked at me and then put a heavy hand on my forearm.

“Keep ‘n mind Mr. Coxcomb,” he said in a tense but even voice. “Orcs ‘ill
climb a screamin’ tree to go an’ ‘ave a look.” I nodded, recovering myself. Instead
of doing anything then, the two of us waited there for a moment as the ugly noise
of orc talk rose to greet us and the steady swinging of an axe sent up the vibrations
that shook us through and through.

Let me pause here briefly. My butler has just brought to my notice a speck
of lint clinging to my cuff and this reminds me of a comical episode that transpired
at your parent’s gala which I have not previously had the chance to share with you
and is a matter of not inconsiderable social currency. I was engaging Dr. Attis
Whelper and a Mr. Cyril Quarles in a debate regarding the merits of the hundred
cost exchange system for the trinity of commerce-metals, versus those of a
radically absurd idea proposed at a recent financial symposium involving replacing
this with open market speculation. Surely doing so would lead to all sorts of
diabolical anarchy but Dr. Whelper was eager to offer a defense of the suggestion
and we were making a solid joust of it when a commotion broke out among a group
of guests huddled to our immediate left. All of us stopped and glanced over
discretely as the following contest of wills unfolded. Mr. Hume Cockles, a known
agitator and blusterer, had managed somehow to get himself within the orbit of
that peerless wit, Mr. Juas Ansant, and his usual retinue of ladies, when the former,
piqued with some dire species of jealousy, challenged the latter outright.

“Sir, I have read your latest treatise on the superiority of Imperial art. Sir! It
is an affront! Nowhere in all its contrived attempts at eloquence does it even begin
to justify the reckless insult it hurls against the culture of our own people! It is not
just literary sport sir, it is ammunition for our primordial enemy! How do you

answer this!? How can you!? Even in this time of peace, such a discourse is flatly
treasonous! What! You don’t think the matter important! Then convince us sir!
Make the case!” before adding at the end a final sneering “If you can.”

The footsteps of an aphid could have been heard in the waft of silence that
settled across the room. Everyone was looking at Mr. Ansant expectantly but he
just stood there for a second, staring contentedly at his bubbling glass of
champagne. And there was an exquisite torture in this for those of us who were
waiting but, just when it threatened to overpower our hushed enchantment, the
slightest look of curiosity dawned on his face and he handed his glass over to a
breathless female companion (While still unwavering in a focus that had slowly
crept down to his sleeve) It was a hair Miss Summers, a delicate female hair as
golden as your own, and ever so slowly and gently he plucked it with thumb and
finger so he could examine it in a better light. Then, with consummate grace and
breeding, he casually blew the hair away before looking out, taking in the whole
room at once, and bathing us all in the most glorious conceivable smile. Miss
Summers, there were gasps, honest gasps, at this display of social virtuosity.
Applause as well and, very rapidly, the rascal Mr. Cockles made his now
ignominious exit.

It was surely worth a bravo if I may say and I would feel myself a cad if I
deprived you of the knowledge of it. But I hope I have not strayed your interest
completely from my own story. As I was saying, the orcs had us in a rather bad way.
We listened though and noted that they did not appear to know we were there so
this put us in the awkward position of wondering if we should abandon caution and
attack. Thankfully it didn’t come to that. Instead, the hand of the deity lifted us
from our plight when a quarrel broke out among the orcs and they entirely forgot
about the tree they’d intended to fell. A magnificent sliver of dawn was beginning
to flood the land too as the begrudging moon finally neared the end of its nightly
eclipse. So, when they left, we knew they wouldn’t be returning for at least several
hours. Nevertheless we capitalized on our good fortune with all haste by
dismantling our blind of only its most valuable components and making our way
down without the least spot of idleness. How exhilarating it was Miss Summers, to
be back on solid ground after over a week living in the precarious sky! There was
still plenty of work for us to do though and we had already discussed the fact the
preceding night that we’d have to move to a different location in order to get a
clean shot at the orcs we wanted. We therefore moved in tandem now with

purpose, and no unnecessary conversation, as we scrambled over to our next
destination. Somehow we we’re split up however, undergrowth in the forest I
think, when I nearly collided with someone who was not Mr. Morte.

This someone in fact had green-skin and two other someones with them. I
knew right away that the first one was a she-orc however because wild females do
not cover their torsos and her large sagging breasts hung there with ever the
slightest tremble. She was frozen though as I recognized her as Drags Foot, a lamed
matron among her kin who was nearing the end of her forty year life span. With
her were two spawn who couldn’t be more than a summer old and of which neither
was tall enough to bump their forehead on their guardian’s elbow (On the ground
meanwhile lay a basket half-filled with picked mushrooms) It was a bizarre
predicament to be sure but fortunately I didn’t hesitate and before Drags Foot
could screech I had pulled the dagger Captain Heems had inspired me to have at
the ready and plunged it squarely into the she-orc’s throat. She died with
incomprehension still lingering on her face and I dispatched both the spawn too
with equal efficiency and ease before wiping my blade on the body of one of them
and dashing off to find Mr. Morte. When I caught up with him he looked at me,
covered as I was in fresh blood, and knew more or less exactly what had happened.

“Ah foin bit of work there Mr. Coxcomb,” he said approvingly. “Oi didn’t even
‘ear a thing.”

With the surge of vitalistic energies that I felt from dispatching my first orc,
and three at once in fact, I was keen to run and so beat Mr. Morte to our target
location by a full twenty seconds.

“Right then,” he said. “Same thing as be’fore. Up a tree we go. Only it won’t
be telescopes we’re brandishin’ dis time.” He punctuated his remark by patting the
side of his rucksack which had the F.R.O.M. in it (Far Range Optical Musket) and I
envied him for a second. I was not familiar enough with the weapon to dare suggest
that I take any of the shots. No, my part was to be a wary set of eyes and ears now,
to divide the weight of our equipage and, if the worse transpired, to unsheathe a
blade beside my companion as we faced off against who knows how many
ravenous foes. Yes, it was thoughts of this nature that preoccupied me while we
ascended the second tree and continued to distract me even as we built ourselves
a pair of hanging rope seats (No nest this time since we intended to move locations

each morning after we made an attempt on one of the prey) Our ideas about how
things were going to unfold from here though proved very wide of the mark. But
happily so! My killing of the she-orc and cubs turned out to be an amazing spot of
good fortune since her tribe discovered the corpses in the ensuing afternoon (Their
howling was unmistakable) and a spectacular pandemonium broke out. Oh! Please
excuse my penmanship for a moment because a bout of chortling just now is
making it difficult to write with my customary neatness. Actually, I will pause.
Alright! Better. Indeed, there was much commotion then as the outraged orcs held
an assembly outside to get at the bottom of which of them had done the killings
for which I myself was responsible. A full four thousand at least! And, even with so
many of the blighters crammed together, we were quickly able to identify all the
ones we wanted.

Mr. Morte in fact was practically salivating now to get on with it and, as their
uproar continued pouring into the air like ash from a volcano, he hurriedly attached
what was, in all likelihood, a totally unrequired muffler to the end of his rifle and
steadied the five foot long weapon for his first shot.

“Are you going to save Grim Eye for last?” I half shouted, thinking of our
previous consideration that dropping him might send most of them hiding in panic.

“Nah,” was all he replied as he found the cantankerous chief in his sights. I
turned towards the bedlam of orcs with our telescope and only had a few seconds
to watch Grim Eye smacking around a queue of underlings when the thump of the
F.R.O.M, with all its immense satisfaction, let me know that a projectile was now
on route. A rather deadly one to be sure as, not a moment later, the back of Grim
Eye’s head erupted in a fountain of vermillion goo. His brains, you see, turned to
mush as the bullet spun around inside his skull, following its getting trapped there,
after the initial entry wound.

“Capital shot!” I cheered before Mr. Morte quipped, “Bit of a decap-ital one
actually.” Meanwhile, their chief’s death, despite causing severe consternation
among his nearest comrades, failed to lead to a general alarm. Or even notice. In
all the snarling and tumultuousness it seemed, the orcs had failed to realize they
were being exterminated.

The next to go was Tall One. The first of our targets to be identified that day
for obvious reasons, he took a bullet through the temple and collapsed sideways,
falling on a trio of his startled kin. Then it was Lug Bones’ turn. Through no fault of
Mr. Morte, the brute required two shots; the first going right into his eye but,
somehow, he was still stumbling around after this so my companion had to put
another into his heart from behind. That proved sufficient. Moving on to Dark Howl
after this, the beast was hanging off a ledge of one of the hive mounds, shaking a
fist at a coterie of orcs below when, quite unexpectedly from his point of view, he
ungracefully joined them there; lying as motionless as a lightning-struck sparrow.
This left only Huge Nose and Blood Chug. The latter happened to be the easier of
the two and he was gleefully squeezing the last juice from a severed arm into his
upturned mouth when his thirst was finally quenched for good. Huge Nose though
disappeared for a while. We had to search the crowd of still teeming orcs for a solid
half hour before we spotted him again, sitting with his usual chums, sulking it
seemed but over who knows what. Mr. Morte, quite expertly, got him between the
eyes from at least a hundred and seventy yards away and this produced the tidy
result of a thin stream of blood flowing right down, and then off, the tip of his nose.

“We made a golly plum job of it, eh Coxcomb?” cackled my companion as he
started packing up. The vim of hooligans was in us then and, had I been less
distracted, I would have tried my case again regarding Was Dead but, instead, I
simply joined Mr. Morte as we made a dash of it. The forest below seemed quiet
despite the ample din coming from nearby so we sprinted through the woods and
up the slope we’d scrambled down so long ago until, nearing the ridge above, we
finally started to slow down.

“The captain will be pleased won’t he?” I asked, convinced I knew the answer
but eager to hear it from my colleague.

“Aye. An’ a bit more than that!” he replied, an accompanying grin flashing
his lone gold tooth. Mr. Morte then started searching himself for his pipe and,
perceiving his distraction, I turned forward towards the ridge again and bounded
the last stretch to the top. Standing there, feeling myself at the zenith of
accomplishment, I pivoted around and basked in the surrounding forest as a now
billowing Mr. Morte gradually made his way over. This lasted the whole of a very
pleasant minute before I suddenly found myself tackled by a slobbering orc.

Right away we were fighting to the death. As it so happened, it was Old Scab
I was up against and, pinning me down with the weight of his bulk, he immediately
went to work trying to tear out my throat. I had my blade though and, shielding
myself as best I could with one arm, I used the other to grab my weapon and start
stabbing him in the side. This amounted to all of two thrusts however before Old
Scab seized me by the hand and wrist, and began to twist the dagger towards me.
I shudder recalling this but let me not delay. We wrestled like that, both of us using
our two arms to try and point the blade at each other, in what felt like an unending
struggle until my enemy gained the advantage and succeeded in pushing the
acutely angled dagger into my stomach. I hardly felt it before I did and, as the shock
of the pain threatened to smother the last of my resistance, I wondered to myself
why I was alone in this. But I wasn’t. Good Mr. Morte, blessed Mr. Morte, had finally
come to aid me and he stuck a cocked pistol right in Old Scab’s face and fired off a
round. The fanged grimace of triumph that had just been lording above me rapidly
vanished with a trail of gore and I was left clutching my wound as Mr. Morte bent
down to assist. It was life threatening but not fatal and Mr. Morte did a physician’s
job of it, bandaging me with strips torn from a sheet of linen.

“Can you walk Mr. Coxcomb?” he asked with a hint of trepidation.

“I have to,” said I and, after he helped me to my feet, we hobbled onwards
at a steady pace until reaching the ring of thorny brush that divided the site of our
contest with the orcs from the rest of the enclosed world.

From this point on there’s not much to relate of interest. We made it back to
the outpost in darkness and I was thereupon swiftly carried to a bed where I
proceeded to argue with a military doctor regarding the administration of a
suspicious looking serum before passing out like a discarded marionette. I woke up,
days later, as a soldier was laying a bowl of soup beside my bed and after a bit of
haggling I managed to get him to bring around the doctor. Said man assured me I
would survive but this good news was tinged with a sigh now because I was of the
inference that Mr. Morte had left without me. Within the hour though I was proved
wrong and my companion remained during the course of my week long
convalescence so that, on an appropriately sunny Twinsday morning some time
later, we both set off in the tow of loyal Obsidian. Captain Heems of course had
been abundant with praise and in this he showed himself to be nearly as eloquent
as he was in cursing.

“You rascals sure put in some hearty work!” he exclaimed in one of our final
interactions. “Songs of the sirens man! There’s a swell future in it for you if you ever
tire of the gilded humdrum of Minter’s Street.”

I confess I seriously entertained the notion but, by the time we had reached
Obelisk Junction, the seers of Prudence and Calculation had prevailed. Mr. Morte
and myself meanwhile had made no discussion of any further involvement in his
business and when he stopped to let me out in front of my city residence (And what
a wonderfully deranged sight this was, the pair of us in a rustic wagon in that part
of town) we parted simply as friends.

“Homer, yer not a bad sort,” he opined. “Fer a dandy.” With little more than
a last minute handshake, our time together ended and it was with the fresh seed
of later-year nostalgia that I watched him disappear in a wake of astonished
pedestrians. Feeling the soreness here of a long journey’s end, as well as the still
throbbing memento I received from Old Scab, I climbed the stairs of my building
and shuffled my way inside.

Greeting me in my foyer was my man Aster (Excuse me Miss Summers, that
is to say, my butler) and he was dutifully attendant as he helped me settle into a
plush chair by the veranda. The poor fellow; I must have regaled him for hours with
every detail of my adventure and, even as late as that evening, I was still in a
talkative mood. Visitors had come and went but, in conclusion, I’ll just share one
last conversation Aster and I had that night.

“We never hear much about wild orcs in the newspapers, do we Aster?”

He thought for a second before replying, “No sir, we don’t.”

It suddenly seemed rather strange to me. “Would you say it’s peculiar?” I
asked.

“Yes,” he answered.

“And, inordinately so?” I pressed.

“Indeed,” he confirmed.

We appeared to reach the summit of our inquiry with this. “Most
inordinately peculiar,” I summarized while shaking my head and returning to my
glass of 1098 ReVoyae.

“Quite definitely sir,” he agreed.

There you have it Miss Summers; the whole of a modern chronicle of heroes
and villains, humbly presented by an admiring acquaintance. Yet for all my trouble
with the orcs, I did not gain much materially by the experience. However I’ve so far
neglected to share one thing I did obtain. The scar I now have on my abdomen isn’t
the only memento I got from Old Scab. And, when next we meet, I will present to
you as a gift the fearsome orc’s severed hand (Worry not, I’ve had it cleaned and
stuffed) Before then however I trust I shall hear from you. Please write soon; the
apple of a moment can’t stay ripe forever.

Effusively Yours,

Homer Coxcomb, Esquire

***

[Her Reply]

To the Superbly Courageous Mr. Coxcomb, Esquire

My dear sir, I find your recent letter most gratifying and have since shared it
with many. All delight in it. I think you do yourself a disservice though when you
dismiss your own aptitude for poetry. Such a facility with words as you have is a
rare gift and it would be a true shame if you deprived the rest of us of further
narratives on account of a false sense of inadequacy. My father is frequently known

to remark that a man should always do what he is best at and, while your meteoric
prosperity has been noted by several of us in established households, I am tempted
to suggest that your most favorable destiny lies not in finance or soldiering but
rather in making contributions of a literary nature. Regarding your depiction of
Captain Heems however, I was greatly surprised by it as he has been a guest at our
home countless times and was always the epitome of a benevolent soul. I suppose
though that a civilized gentlemen will do as he must when rising to meet barbaric
circumstances. Understand Mr. Coxcomb that I do not fault you in any way for this
only, I was rather perplexed at the incongruity, and wanted to make a note of it.
Also I should do you the courtesy of admitting the fact that my interest in the
sciences is somewhat more dilettantish than you appear to believe. A kind mind
you are to remember me so grandly but in truth my interest in orcs was a matter
of fleeting circumstance since my sister and I had been reading aloud that morning
from a book of folk tales. You know the one by Mr. Olunds? Well, in it there’s a
story about an orc who believed himself a sorcerer and as you can imagine it was a
narrative of the most exceptional mirth. Not unlike your own. Thank you as well for
your account of Mr. Ansant’s sparring. I received multiple versions of it from our
guests as you must surely have deduced, but I’ll commend you for adding plenty of
otherwise unmentioned details. You are quite an interesting gentleman sir and,
because you have been so entertaining Mr. Coxcomb, I suppose I will have to
excuse the lapses into familiarity with which you have numerous times addressed
me. They are of course benign; even my fiancé found them amusing. You know him
I believe. Tyseus Prestor? Indeed, I’m certain you’ve heard of him in regards to his
commercial developments in the Cypress District. I am assured they are the most
capital intensive of their kind. Which reminds me, we will soon be going on our own
excursion in the West Lowlands, visiting charming coastal towns and the like. As
such you and I shan’t encounter each other anytime soon. Thank you though for
your delightful letter and one day we shall have a very pleasant talk about it.

Your Very Respectful Acquaintance,

Martha Summers (soon Prestor)

P.S. Please send Old Scab’s hand by delivery. I am most eager to appraise it.

IN MOONDUST SHADOWS

Twillard Cooty woke up in a pile of trash to a pandemonium of cheers. Coots,
as he was more commonly called among his small fellowship of wayward addicts
and petty hoodlums, had no idea what the uproar was all about. Or even where he
was. The latter of these was a common event for him though so he coped with it as
only a virtuoso of debauchery could, having a long degenerate history to their
credit, and stood up without the slightest embarrassment. More cheers arose from
the nearby invisible crowd. I’m goin’ to have to see about that, thought Coots as he
peeled some clinging pieces of lobster shell from his jacket; a jacket already layered
in homesteading stains. Looking around now he observed that he was in a grimy
sunlit alley which he recognized; but of course there wasn’t a grimy alley in the
whole city that he wasn’t on a first name basis with. Although he did go by his last
name so… In any case, he knew the place. Ah! Pale Body’s Lane! One of the best.
Many fond memories and more no doubt to come. Coots did a stumbling zig zag as
he got his legs swinging properly and then shuffled towards the noise that seemed
to be emanating from the direction of Elven Way. Trying to avoid blundering into
any of the other disheveled partakers of the alley, and there were several, Coots
swerved around these with a notable lack of grace before exiting the cluttered lane
and finding himself staring at a throng of people with their backs turned towards
him. “Fracas and ruckus,” he muttered to himself but he was eaten up with curiosity
and he both stood on his tiptoes and hopped to try and get a better view. Finally a
great garlanded chariot appeared at half submergence in the oceanic masses and
Cooty suddenly realized what was going on. A parade. But that would mean today

was Pawn’s Carnival, which was, and he had to think here, the sixth of Mirth.
Hmmmm. Satyrsday. This wasn’t important to him because he had any kind of job
obviously, what one might generously call a living he made by randomly scavenging
the neglected property of others, but he did have routines that coincided with
various times of the week. There were periods to inconspicuously loiter in certain
places that were more advantageous than others. And, as any self-respecting fiend
will tell you, a score that’s lost is a score no more. Coots naturally didn’t need to be
reminded of this; for all he could remember with his drug-scorched brain, he might
have even been the one who coined the phrase.

Yes, in his past eleven years of unrelenting junkie mania, he had reached the
very pinnacle of what it means to be upside-down in gonzo country. But what, one
might ask, was the man’s toxin of choice? Why, it was the same one shared by the
rest of the most ravaged of the rabble. Moondust. The sand of mazes, the appetizer
of eternity. One hoot could take you instantly to a heaven for the damned. Cooty
didn’t just smoke it though; it overpowered and numbed any senses it came in
contact with so addicts got creative. And Twillard Cooty was an artiste. So, yeah, he
smoked it but he also snorted it and gummed it and injected it and gulped it in shots
mixed with grog and sprinkled it on his eyes and hooped it up his anus. When it
came to moondust, there was really no bad way to go. It wasn’t magic; it was better
than magic. Sorcery was mostly just gibberish anyways with rarely more than a
cannon shot worth of kaboom at the end. Moondust, to the contrary, was gospel.
Folk abandoned their entire families just to be slaves to its truth.

Noticing that the crowd was thoroughly enthralled by all the fanfare and
spectacle, Coots started lurking a little closer to see if anyone’s pockets could use
his professional attention. Lots of respectable folk about, he mused as his eyes
passed from a portly man in a hazel double-breasted vest and matching breeches
to an equine looking woman in a gamely corseted dress. You must seem quite the
stand out fellow here Mr. Cooty! It had been awhile since he’d actually examined
his appearance but when last he did he recalled seeing a man in a state of age
defying dilapidation, a characteristic soon common to all hardcore addicts, with a
head of hair that looked like the backside of a stray dog and a nose twisted and
reset more times than he could faithfully recall and lips and teeth like some desert
lizard and then, beneath it all, a chin that narrowed into an edge of rude granite.
Only his eyes conveyed something of the spirit that survived in him and these were
a pair of green jewels gleaming with troves of trickery. Coots suddenly got a bad

feeling though and looking more closely he noticed the undercover city warders in
the crowd. Or “the law” as some might say despite the fact that they were just as
likely as any other gang to lay a beating on a guy like him simply because they felt
like it (And in this gathering he stuck out like a toad among turtle doves)

Spying them before being seen himself, Coots decided to elude a thrashing
for once and make Yours Truly as scarce as propriety at a bronze penny whore
house. Galumphing in to Pale Body’s Lane again, he soon re-emerged from the
other side into the Angle District. There the streets abruptly tossed aside all sense
of order and took off in random directions like scattering thieves. Not having settled
on a particular destination, he wandered around for a bit before stumbling on to a
modest cobblestone plaza. In it, islands of small groups stood around solitary
pedagogues standing on crates as the latter did their best to regale their fragile
audiences with lectures and diatribes. The infamous Cuckoos Forum, observed
Coots, before spewing a big glob of phlegm towards a storm drain and missing. It
was what could only be described, in all honesty, as a freak show of ideas.

Coots strolled around, carefully evaluating the selection of speakers, before
finally deciding to give an ear to a wizened sage wearing nothing but a fleecy shawl.

“Everything progresses in cycles,” the man intoned as he propounded on the
nature of reality. “The seasons, the tides, the celestial bodies orbiting the sun; all
of them moving as circles within the great sphere of the world. We see this too in
life, with plants and animals in their endless generations, including most of all
perhaps that of man himself. He wakes and sleeps, eats and squats, breathes in and
out, repeats pastimes and rituals throughout his life, until he dies. Should we not
expect too then that death will also obey this cosmic law? Why in a universe where
everything else is continuously reabsorbed and repurposed would the soul be the
one thing that’s permanently destroyed? No doubt many of you are faithful
believers in the Deity and so already accept that those who prove themselves on
earth will receive salvation in heaven but I tell you there can be no permanent
heaven! See for yourselves! The kingdoms above also follow cycles as our
astrologers have verified for thousands of years. Therefore even the elect of
heaven must return to earth eventually. The cosmos forbids stagnation.” For some
reason the idea of a temporary stay in paradise truly offended Twillard Cooty and
he insisted on making himself heard on the matter.

“That’s rubbish that is!” he growled to the surprise of those around him.

“Speak fellow immortal!” replied the sage however, appearing perfectly
happy to engage one only a few degrees more abnormal than he was.

“Well,” said Coots cautiously. He wasn’t expecting the unperturbed reaction
he got. “How’s it goin’ work then? They kick you out like a fancy restaurant you
don’t belong in or something? I thought this was supposed to be heaven. Looks like
there’s a big crack in your logic there you old goat.”

Despite the insult, the sage smiled at his angry challenger beatifically.
“Doesn’t pleasure bring forgetfulness?” they began. “Then bliss must produce
oblivion. And so, in our lack of remembrance, our astral selves begin to long for
material life again, unmindful of its hardships. With this the cycle then continues,
as it surely must, forever.”

Coots spat on the ground in rage. “I guess I’ll be zipping back real soon after
I’m dead,” he scoffed. “Not much a lout like me wants to remember of this place.”
His jibe succeeded in dislodging a few surprising chuckles from the other
bystanders and Coots took a moment to beam at their faint approval.

The sage meanwhile remained composed. “I do not try to say what is
enjoyable friend,” they explained. “Only what is true.” Disgusted by the man’s
patience under provocation, Twillard Cooty simply waved dismissively at the sage
and walked away.

Needing to cleanse his palate of the saintliness that’d just been shoved down
his throat, Coots searched around again for a public speaker more congenial to his
tastes. Eventually he caught a doomsday preacher in mid harangue shouting “The
stars will melt into pools of blood!” and this fragment was enough to reel him right
in. Here’s a fella for me, he thought, as he squeezed in among the rest of their
listeners.

“And the horse will devour the trees as the wolf devours the beasts!”
thundered the skeletal man in a prim grey suit as his lone gnome assistant passed
out self-printed pamphlets. “Then the moon will descend to imprison the land in
ice before the dragon who feasts on dragons awakes and condemns us all! Infants

will hang from their mother’s breasts like worm-riddled fruit and devils will make
themselves fathers over your sons and daughters! There will be years of darkness
and the fresh lakes will be swallowed in the earth and fire will shoot forth from the
wells you once drank from! Your offspring will envy the dead and ghosts will weep
for the living! Human flesh will become the banquet of locusts after they’ve finished
gorging themselves on your fields and your stores of grain! Last of all, the hooves
of machines will trample the final slaves that remain in an unimaginable threshing
until those who are left flee into cocoons of fantasy and nightmare as a world
drained of its sorcery is sentenced to die by a merciless judge! Your evil will bring
this upon you people of Orb! And at the end not one mountain will remain!” As a
punctuation of this concluding outcry, the preacher collapsed to his knees and
raised a tear stained face and outstretched arms to the sky imploringly. His
audience then erupted in wild applause.

That man’s a poet for sure, thought Coots, as he walked away with one of
the pamphlets in his hand. By the Deuce! His palms were sore from all the clapping
he’d done. Taking a gander at the literature he’d been given, Coots saw that it had
been printed by The Church of Our Savior’s Aegis. Hmmm, he thought. Aulsanians.
He didn’t know much about them so he started flipping through its pages while
continuing to walk without paying much attention to where he was going. He really
didn’t read so good though and his eyes soon grew listless at the sight of so many
squiggly words so he folded the pamphlet neatly with the best of intentions and
deposited it in his jacket to look over later. There it promptly fell out a hole in his
pocket and was just as quickly forgotten about in any case. Where to now then Mr.
Cooty? After a pause he decided he wanted to avoid the hullabaloo of the parade
as much as possible so he’d make his way to the waterfront on his right and have a
nice amble through the Port District. A few minutes later he was walking among
the multi-storied brick buildings of the area when he did his best imitation of a
waltz as a cloud enveloped him coming from a grated vent the size of a tunnel
gushing out steam generated by a conjoined sixty loom textile factory.

Appearing like an illusionist on the other side, Coots bowed to his imaginary
patrons and continued on his way before the sight of a stagecoach stopped him. A
nearby apartment or office must have been in the middle of switching its occupants
because there was a variety of quality belongings neatly arranged next to the
carriage. Coots began to salivate. And the lone man packing all these things was as
oblivious as a pigeon insipidly bobbing its head. He would dip into the back

compartment to place one box or item at a time and do this for durations long
enough that it would be as easy as a breeze to slip by and snatch something away.
Finding his preferred target in a two-foot tall ornately carved mechanical clock,
Coots innocently crept closer until he was directly on the other side of the man’s
carriage, seemingly engaged in an admiring survey of the nearby buildings. Really
he was looking to see if anyone was watching. When he had confirmed the lack of
witnesses to his own satisfaction and the man descended once more into the
obscured depths of the stagecoach, Coots snuck over in weaselling silence and
delicately snatched up the clock like it was an unguarded egg.

This he placed under his jacket and scuttled off in an inconspicuous direction,
successfully making it to a parallel alley without even raising an alarm. Well, if you
don’t notice it’s gone you don’t deserve it! Coots cackled as he broke out into a trot
and began to put some real distance between himself and the site of his theft.
“Woo!” he shouted gleefully to a pair of uniformed merchant sailors giving him a
puzzled look and he jumped and did a jaunty kick as his mind turned to how he
could change this fine specimen of time keeping into moondust as quickly as
possible. Ugly Knid, he thought, meaning Knid Bloxen, the guru of an embryonic
gang of minor league rascals currently squatting in the basement of a Gaol Island
tenement. That meant crossing open sea but he had a good system worked out
long ago for that. He’d take the Metro Ferry and not by paying a fare or hopping
the gate. No, he’d creep his way up to the hull of the ship from underneath the
dock and grab a hold of the prow anchor. Then he’d just have to hang on the half
hour or so it’d take to finish the crossing and he’d be safe on the other side.
Provided a hungry mermaid didn’t see him. Rod slobbering sea hags! But they were
a rare sight in high traffic areas during the day. Spurred on now by the dust induced
delirium that soon promised to be his, Twillard Cooty implemented his plan to
perfection and moments later he was dangling with one arm wrapped around the
anchor chain and a toe hold in one of its links while he cradled his stolen clock in
the other arm. No better way to travel, he mused, as his ferry left its terminal and
the boisterous reeking sea divided submissively before him.

At the other end of the crossing it was simply a matter of jumping off when
the right second arrived and Coots acquitted himself adequately here, landing on
the shore boulders below the pier with only a slight twist of an ankle and no
permanent damage to either himself or his liberated cargo.

“And I’ll be a witness to a legend,” drawled a voice suddenly. Coots tensed
with paranoia for a second before he spotted the pile of rags next to a pillar and
the tell-tale beak of a nose sticking out from this.

“Oh! Hey there Hunze,” Coots replied. The sprawled man buried under a nest
of soiled garments was merely another derelict acquaintance of his enjoying a no
doubt well-earned repose in the briny garbage-strewn gloom beneath a foot
pounded wharf.

“What’cha got there?” asked Hunze as he noticed the clock.

“Just nothing,” retorted Coots. “Payment for a debt is all.” Twillard Cooty
wasn’t about to tell Euffinias Hunzea that he was on the verge of snagging a hefty
pouch of dust and risk the pesky rotter trying to tag along. Waving an emphatic
goodbye to pre-empt any further conversation, Coots bounded away towards a gap
in the floorboards of the pier that led back into the world of daylight.

No one paid any attention as he materialized with a slither, this was Gaol
Island after all, and Coots found himself once again among the shabby brick
buildings and warped hovels and fissured streets he was such a regular frequenter
of. Knid’s squat meanwhile was only a short sprint to the northwest so he got going
immediately in that direction. A few minutes later however, as he was traversing a
large empty lot that had gradually grown into a community junkyard, he was beset
by two ogres. Literal ogres. One was at least twice as tall as he was, the other maybe
only a foot or so shorter than this.

“Look heer Dirk,” globbered the bigger of the two. “Da wind blew uss a skinny
liddle scarecrow.”

Dirk huffed as his ogly eyes bulged with cruelty. “Den shtick a pole up its butt
Morhl,” he sneered. The pair of brutes enjoyed a nice hulking bout of laughter as
Cooty shrank in anticipation of what was about to happen.

“Und wuts dis??” rasped Morhl as he noticed the clock Coots was swaddling
in his jacket. “Give us dat.”