I showed Lilly the dagger sitting on the table and she made a face of pure disgust.
“Ugh,” she said, “it’s cursed. Where did you get it?”
“Took it off some mugger I saw threatening a lady and a kid.”
“You’re such a hero. But this thing is nasty.”
She examined it, looking around it while not touching it and finally holding her hands over it and casting a spell.
“Yeah,” she said, “definitely cursed. It causes misfortune to anyone who owns it. The longer they have it, the stronger the curse. Feels like it hasn’t been used in years though, which is good. You say a mugger had this thing?”
“Maybe he found it,” I said shrugging.
“I guess,” Lilly said doubtfully. “But chances are you stumbled into something bigger than you knew. Lucky as always, Grandfather.”
“That’s me. Can you destroy it?”
“No. I’ll take it in tomorrow and see that it gets locked up good and tight. There’s a unit for this sort of thing. Unfortunately, cursed weapons aren’t as rare as you would hope.”
Now I knew why a man like Cladius spent the rest of his life coming in behind a man like Maxwell. I hoped that without the curse, things were different for him.
The next day I made two stops. The first was at the watchhouse, where I went in and saw Sarge at his usual spot, reading the newssheet.
“Hey, Sarge,” I said, as I always did.
“Duke,” he said, not looking up. “Working today, or social call on Lilly?”
“Neither. I actually came to see you.”
Now he did look up, and stared at me with his eyebrows drawn down.
“Something wrong?” I asked.
“No,” he said slowly, “I just had the funniest feeling… Eh, it’s nothing. What do you want?”
“Lilly and I were talking, and we were hoping that maybe you’d join us for a drink after work.”
He gave me the fish-eye.
“Why?”
“Why not? We’ve know each other for years. It’s way past time.”
He straightened up. “Sounds good. One thing though?”
“Anything,” I said.
“Okay to bring the wife? I usually head home right after work, and she’ll worry otherwise.”
“Sarge,” I said, “that would great.”
I left smiling, having learned something new about my friend already.
The second stop was a newsstand. I bought a newssheet and looked through it. Sure enough, there was an ad for Cladius Moore, retailer of fine goods. I got lucky again. His daughter was getting married, and Cladius had done well enough for himself for it to make the society column. I smiled at that too.
No one other than me remembered what almost happened. I was glad that Sarge was good, that Cladius had been rid of a curse that he did nothing to deserve, and that I was back in the here and now with Lilly.
Sometimes, it’s not a bad thing to be the only one in on a secret.
INTERLUDE 5
When Duke finished his story, he held his finger up to get the bar girls attention, which already happened several times during the course of his story.
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough, Granddad?” the young man asked.
“Ah, one more. Telling tales is thirsty work.”
The bar girl brought him the ale, took money from the grandson and moved away. He took a deep draught, smacked his lips and smiled at his grandson.
“Well,” he said. “That’s a story that no one but me knows about. Not even your grandmother. Well, and now you, of course.”
The younger man sipped his ale, the only one he ordered in the course of the story telling, and regarded his grandfather.
“You’ve told me some pretty remarkable things lately, Granddad. And I know you were the best of the Nuisance Men. But even you have to admit, a story that no-one but you remembers? Are you sure you’re not putting me on, just to see how gullible I can be?”
Duke smiled.
“Glad to see you thinking like that. It shows a skeptical nature, which I like. But no, I’m not putting you on. Every word of that tale, and any others I tell you, is completely true.”
He reached into his money pouch and pulled out a large, silver coin. It was an old fashioned piece of money, with the head of the current King’s father on the one side. Across the back side of it was an “S” scratched roughly into it. He handed it to his grandson.
“I took this from my trophy room this morning. To show you after I told you the story of how I got it.”
“Wait a minute,” the young man said. “If Sarge never gave the token to Cladius, how do you have it?”
Duke smiled.
“When Sarge turned himself in, he was so distraught that he didn’t notice that he left it on the counter amongst all the other stuff he piled up there. I palmed it when your Grandmother was talking to that annoying little private. Since it was on me when I went back in time, and then forward again, I still have it.”
The young man considered.
“I still don’t think that works,” he finally said.
“Eh, magic. What can you do?” Duke said, and finished his ale.
He stood, and shrugged into his cloak.
“I’m heading home, and you should do the same. It’s getting late and you don’t want to worry your mother.”
“I should walk you home,” the young man protested.
Duke chuckled.
“Kid, I appreciate it, and you’re a good boy. But the day hasn’t come yet that I can’t take care of myself. Besides, it’s only a couple of blocks. When are you coming by again?”
“Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow, then. Have dinner with us, your grandmother would love it.”
“I’ll be there,” the young man said, and watched as his grandfather, steady as a rock, walked out of the door of the tavern.
The next evening, when dinner was over and the young man helped his grandmother with the dishes, Duke sat by the fire, a newssheet on his lap. When the young man came in, he held it out to him.
“Here. Read the second article.”
The young man took the paper, scanned it and then handed it back.
“See anything unusual with it?”
“Nope. It’s a story in an old newssheet about that big orc clan, the Tollersons, and some new building project of theirs.”
“That’s right. Now, what do you know about the Tollersons?”
“Not too much. They’re a huge clan, and they do a lot of the construction in the city. Orc built stuff is on a par with dwarven made from what I understand, so there’s a big demand for it.”
“Correct, as usual. And that’s exactly what almost anyone else would think too. Unless of course, you know the real story of the Tollerson clan.”
The young man grinned.
“Let me get my stylus.”
A few moments later he sat in the chair across from his grandfather, as he listened to the next tale.
CLAN WAR
I told you about the orcs and their family units, didn’t I? How they stick together in big clans and all live together, the mothers and fathers along with all of their kids and their families, and grandmothers and grandfathers, uncles, aunts and cousins. Hell, a lot of the time, when they marry, they combine households; adding on rooms as needed or joining buildings together. That way they avoid arguments about where the new couple will live.
It’s all very peaceable and law-abiding, if way too claustrophobic for my taste, but it works for them. At least, it works most of the time, but orcs are like anyone else, and have their problems and black sheep. When that happens, the family usually resolves the problem on its own. Sometimes that means the offender is brought into line, but other times, in severe cases, it means they get cast out of the clan, which is basically a death sentence.
Well, it used to be a death sentence anyway. It’s not so much now, here in Capital City. In their own lands, an orc that’s been cast out of h
is clan can’t find work or shelter anywhere. They end up heading into the wilderness, usually to die there. Occasionally, one proves tough enough and will end up a bandit, or mercenary, but most of them can’t function without their clan, and they end up wasting away.
Here though, there is a whole new side community, made up of orcs that have been expelled from their clans. They call them the Unhoused, and they have banded together in a loose knit unit of their own. If a lone orc ends up on the Nuisance Board, it’s almost always one of them.
But there are also whole clans of orcs that are into the dirt. There are five of those in Capital City. They run some of the biggest criminal organizations in town, and are a thorn in the Watch’s side. If an orc from one of those houses shows up on the Board, they’re usually not alone. Bad news, all around.
But as I say, the majority of orcs, both here and in their home country are law abiding citizens trying to get by. So it was a surprise when I walked into the watchhouse, bright and early at 11:00 AM, and saw a lone orc on the Board. I took it down, and walked over to the desk.
“Hey, Sarge,” I said.
“Duke,” he replied, not looking up from his newssheet.
The man is addicted to the news, I swear. He can talk to you about any current event happening here or abroad, as long as it’s been printed up. I think he has a soft spot for the celebrity news and gossip columns, but he denies that. But it seems that he knows a lot more about the doings of His Royal Majesty and court intrigues, than any mere sergeant in the Watch should.
“Anything good happening in the world today?” I asked him.
“Nothing that would interest you.”
“I didn’t think so. What’s the deal with the orc here, Jarl Jarlson? I assume he’s one of the Unhoused?”
Sarge looked at the notice in my hand and shrugged.
“Not sure, but I don’t think so. If I’m not wrong, the Jarlson’s are a pretty respectable bunch.”
Interesting. I looked at the posting a little better. The bounty, which was a respectable 50 gold ingols, was set by the Tollerson clan. Now that name, I knew.
The Tollerson clan was one of those big five criminal orc families. They had their claws in everything, from protection to sniff dealing to murder for hire. So it was very strange that they would have placed someone on the Board, when they could have easily taken care of the problem themselves.
“I’m going to take this one, Sarge.”
“Be careful,” he said, looking back down at his newssheet. “You know what orcs are like.”
Usually at this point, I headed downstairs, where they were beginning to recognize me, and popped in to see Lilly. It was always a high point in my day, and I like to think that it brightened hers a little as well. She may very well have viewed it as a giant pain in the behind, but if so, she was too sweet to tell me.
But today, Lilly wasn’t there. She went out of town to visit her sister, which came as a surprise to me. We were early enough in our relationship that neither one of us seriously brought up the idea of introducing the other to family yet, but we had discussed it a little. I was under the impression that Lilly didn’t always get along with her sister, but as she told me, family was family. She wasn’t due back for a few more days, so that gave me plenty of time to get into trouble all on my own.
This job for instance. I really didn’t need to work yet, but I was bored, and drinking all day with Jessup lost a little of its luster. My life changed a lot over the last few months, and the idea of sitting in a tavern the whole day wasn’t that attractive anymore. Not to say that I would never do it again, but at the moment, I wanted more.
So what do I do when I’m bored and my powerful necromancer girlfriend is out of town? I take on a nuisance that would require me to go ask questions of one of the most powerful and notorious criminal organizations in the city. I was sure she’d be fine with it. Civic duty and all that.
I headed down to Orc Town, that area of the city that orcs first settled in when his Majesty opened our borders. It’s an interesting place, with the vast majority of businesses orc-owned and run. There were young orcs running underfoot everywhere you looked, and the aroma of strange foods cooking in the air.
I always liked it there. It was almost like travelling to another land, with the benefit of being able to sleep in your own bed at night.
I located the Tollerson compound without any problems, since it was huge. Several buildings were all linked together, and there was a large orcish restaurant at street level. Several large orcs lounged in chairs outside of it, drinking some sort of liquid from little china cups, but they all looked up at me as I approached.
“Whatever you’re selling, we ain’t buying,” one of them said, bringing on a laugh from the others.
“Good thing I’m not selling then,” I replied. “I’m here to see Tollerson.”
That was a bold move on my part. Tollerson was the family name, but by asking to see Tollerson himself, I was saying that I wanted to see their clan head. No one saw the head of the Tollerson clan, or the heads of any of the other big criminal families. Assassinations could happen quickly in a city that boasted several different races, all with different abilities. Not to mention all the minor wizards and witches in need of a few quick ingols.
“Tollerson’s busy,” the one doing the talking said. “Take a walk, while you still have legs.”
No laughter from the rest of them now, just a lot of dark looks in my direction.
I took the notice out of my cloak and threw it on the table in front of him.
“Like I said, I’m here to see Tollerson, but if he’s not available, I’ll talk to whatever flunky can tell me about this.”
The orc picked up the notice and looked at it. He smiled, said, “Hang on,” and walked away. As he did so, he said something in orcish to the others and several of them moved out to surround me, although they kept their distance. They were obviously under orders to make sure I stayed put, which was fine with me. At least until I chose to leave.
They had no idea, of course, about my Ultimate Weapon. I made doubly sure that my gun was set to “orc” before I came here. I didn’t really expect any problems, given that they asked for someone like me to show up, but it never hurt to have a little extra insurance. I hoped that using it wouldn’t be necessary, but if it proved to be, they’d find out what a magical metal ball, aimed carefully, could do to an orc’s head. It wouldn’t be pretty.
A few minutes later, the first orc returned, accompanied by an elder, who shuffled over, looked me up and down, and motioned for the others to stand down. They obeyed without hesitation, which told me that I was at least speaking to a boss of some sort.
“Nuisance Man,” he wheezed, “you come to take the money for this target?”
His voice was raspy and it sounded like he had a hard time breathing. His eyes were sharp though, as he stared at me.
“Maybe,” I said. “I guess that depends on the money and on what he did.”
“Ah, so you’re one of those.”
“Those what?” I asked him, although I had a pretty good idea of what he was referring to.
“One of those do-gooder Nuisance Men, that only go after the ‘guilty’. It makes me laugh.”
“Glad I can amuse you. But what can you tell me about the target, Jarlson?”
He pursed his lips, which caused his lower fangs to jut out even more than usual.
“It’s not enough that the money is good? That we have reason to want him removed?”
“If I amuse you so much, then you already know that it isn’t. You want to tell me what the story is, or should I go ahead back to the watchhouse?”
The old orc regarded me coldly for moment.
“He has interfered in some of our businesses. Before you become indignant, they are businesses that even you would have to admit are beyond reproach. He has cost us money, and become a nuisance. And is that not what your Board is for? To have a nuisance removed?”
“
Sure, and you were hoping to get someone who didn’t really care about whether or not Jarl was guilty of anything, right? Sorry to spoil it for you.”
“No matter, we’re a patient group. Run along to your watchhouse with your morality intact. We’ll recruit another soon enough.”
The hell of it was that he was right. While many Nuisance Men had come around to my way of thinking, forced at first upon me by Ivar’s group and fine-tuned by my own conscience, there were still of plenty of us who didn’t care about good or bad, guilty or innocent. The nuisance was non-human and therefore less than, so they could be eliminated like vermin. One of them would take the notice, get paid with no questions asked, and take out Jarl.
The only thing I could do was go talk to Jarl myself and warn him. I’d like to claim that it was at great personal sacrifice, but since I was in Orc Town already, it wasn’t much of a trip.
The Jarlson compound wasn’t far from the Tollerson one, and was similar in design. While there was no orcish restaurant with a bunch of thugs sitting around, there was the normal warren of buildings that were all connected and added on to. It was a large compound, with lots of orcs living there. That was probably why the Tollerson clan didn’t attack them outright. It’d be a tough fight, sure to draw the attention of the Watch, and maybe even the Palace Guard as well.
I walked up to the large, young, male orc standing guard, with the notice from the Nuisance Board in my hand and told him that I needed to speak to someone about it. He looked at me suspiciously, but nodded and called to someone further in.
“Hold on,” he told me.
A moment later, a group of several orcs came out, all armed to the teeth. In the middle of the crowd was Jarl himself.
“I understand that you’re looking for me,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
“You can tell me about this,” I said, passing the notice to him.
This was a new one for me. I never gave someone their own Nuisance Board notice before and asked them to discuss it with me.
Duke Grandfather- The Whole Story Page 14
