Jak Barley-Private Inquisitor and the Case of the Seven Dwarves

by Dan Ehl

  "I would not say drinking Horse Lips Ale is any sign of a sophisticated palate," came a voice, just a bit cool in tone, from over my left shoulder.

  I turned to see that most of my observations were correct. She was a brunette, wearing bright red lipstick, the scent of honeyrose perfume swirled about her, and she was slim.

  What I had not deduced was that the young woman's eyes were so dark of blue as to be almost as black as any mine shaft, and there was a similar danger of tumbling into them--or that her slimness was so favorably interrupted with swells and curves that led the gaze around and back again.

  She was clad in what if hanging in a wardrobe would seem like a simple satiny dress of black. But on my friend's table guest, the tight garment was transformed into a magical covering that both concealed and revealed as she glided into a chair between Sergey and me.

  I felt like the time I had been gut punched at a licentious nymph mud wrestling festival. Drawing in an even breath was an arduous task that took a conscious effort.

  I automatically slipped into my professional manner, that of what I hoped was the cool appraisal of a private inquisitor. More than once it had kept my mouth from falling open. But behind the detached study I was finding it difficult to think. I had never seen such a beautiful woman in my entire life. These words I might have spoken once or twice, maybe to a comely lass as an inn closed, but this time it was true.

  It was not just that her chocolate milk throat flowed down to a firm bosom, from which an ample cleavage directed one's gaze on to the taut fabric that left little to the whimsy. Nor was it just the slim waist and shapely hips, nor the long legs that brought more to mind than just walking. And it was not the unblemished, oval-shaped face with hazel eyes, rosebud mouth and...

  A studied cough brought me from my reverie.

  "Is this what you would dub a studied assay for purely investigative purposes or just plain ogling?" she asked. "Sergey tells me you are a private inquisitor."

  I knew I was in love. She had not called me a ferret. I raised the bottle of ale to my lips without immediately answering. The pause let me gather my composure.

  "In my profession, one can never be too careful when meeting someone for the first time," I answered. "I had a client killed in his own bed by a West Consin pygmy artfully disguised as a milkmaid."

  "I did not know we had come to that stage in a relationship so soon after meeting," she replied with a coy smile.

  "Assassination?"

  The woman smiled at my gibe. "Is that how you view relationships? Sergey tells me you are not one for extended romances. That be no wonder if you see courtship and marriage as such a pernicious peril."

  I turned inquisitively to Sergey. It was not like him to tell a beautiful maid I was free of attachments. He would customarily explain that I had numerous offspring and was facing bigamy charges in three provinces, of which one was with my eleven-year-old cousin. He returned my stare with the innocent gaze of a drunken puppy. That really made me suspicious.

  "Don't you think it time for introductions, Sergey?" I prodded my inebriated friend.

  Sergey smirked. "Buy me a bottle of ale and another wine for Morgana and I may..."

  "Morganna?" I blurted out, forgetting all about my private inquisitor reserve. "Morganna, the witch?"

  "Come now, Master Barley. You do not still hold one of those outmoded prejudices against witches?" she asked in a bruised voice.

  This time I was examining her with a more critical eye. Was that smile as harmless as it seemed or was there a mocking suggestion of menace behind it? Were those eyes twinkling in mild merriment or was there a more sinister glint to them?

  "I had expected an older lady," I spoke mainly to be saying something.

  "You must be thinking of my mother. The name does confuse people. I spell mine with only one 'n.'"

  "Yes, I can see where that might present a problem. It appears Sergey has already told you much of me, and I am sure little of it bears any relation to the truth," I continued as I gave my friend a dark look. "Ah, did he, ah mention..."

  "That you are investigating an inert spell placed upon Frost Ivory?" Morgana finished my sentence. "And that they believe the author of that incantation is my mother?"

  "Well, er, yes. They have made comments to that effect." I looked into her alluring eyes and bluntly asked, "Did she?"

  Another smile lightly crossed her comely face, as the shadow of a cloud might glide across a garden valley. "A 'yes' would make it a simple task of earning your coal, would it not?"

  I shot another dark look at my friend. What kind of impression can a private inquisitor make if it is blabbered about that he gets paid in coal?

  Turning back to her, I replied, "If you dub almost getting gutted by Reverian Assassins, losing a next-to-the-big toe to a horde of ravenous giant wolf spiders, or a run-in with an army of Blackwatch Goblins as a simple task, then I guess that is an apt description."

  Sergey eyed me with increased interest, the scrutiny of a scribe sizing up a possible saga series. "You do look a bit paler and unkempt since I saw you last. What is this about Blackwatch Goblins?"

  "You did not answer my query?" I continued with Morgana while ignoring Sergey. "Did your mother poison or curse Frost Ivory?"

  "I adore it when you are so earnest," Morgana clasped her hands together and placed her elbows on the table. "Some men seem to lose all spine when chatting with me, as if they have fallen under some kind of spell. I was worried at first that you would be one of them."

  "Then you will appreciate it if I again ask for an answer."

  She sat back in her chair and in a thoughtful tone mused, "Mother can be a bit of a hag, but to place such a bewitchment on a maiden just because of her beauty seems extreme even for her. Mother is vain about her looks, but I do not think she would feel threatened by the insipid cuteness of one such as Frost Ivory. As a matter of fact, I believe she would feel much maligned by such an assertion."

  Morgana again leaned forward and decreed, "No, I do not believe my mother would bother on such account. Not that she would shy from it on more compelling grounds, such as someone wearing the same gown as hers to a ball. As I said, she is a bit of a hag."

  I pondered her comments for a moment then ventured another very important question, "Tell me, do you take after your dear mother?"

  Morgana smiled with her lips poised as if to respond, but instead asked, "Speaking of balls, what are you doing tomorrow, Saturn Day?"

  "What?" She had caught me off guard.

  "The Baron is holding a ball at his country estate and I am looking for an escort."

  I grimaced. The Baron Ruble had no reason to love me, from certain youthful pranks on his son to aggravating his guardsmen while on cases that conflicted with their own conclusions of guilt and innocence.

  "I must admit I have never seen one take on such a sickly cast when considering accompanying me to a ball," she observed dryly.

  "They probably hide it well out of politeness."

  "Do they? I would have never considered my past suitors capable of such kindness."

  "You tend to consort with scoundrels?"

  "It does seem as if I am attracted to rogues," Morgana smiled and in a false coyness batted her eyelashes at me.

  "I would be honored to accompany you to the ball," I attempted to reply in a indifferent tone. "We will meet at the Baron's at what time?"

  "Oh dear, Master Barley. That would never do. You must pick me up at my doorstep."

  I inwardly sighed. There went the cost of renting a carriage. "Delighted. You will have to give me the address of your lodging."

  She smiled even broader while rising from her chair and her answer sent a chill down my spine. "I believe you know where my mother lives."

  Morgana paused where she stood. "I almost forgot. Tell me how you knew those things about me?

  I laughed as if slightly bored. "As with a stage illusionist, a private inquisitor seldom reveals his methods. Let us just say I o
bserve obvious signs an untrained eye will miss."

  "Please," she leaned over me and whispered in my ear so that her breath caressed my cheek, "I would so like to know."

  "Well, ah, you left a smear of red on your wine cup, so it took no great mind work to guess of your lipstick. And the lingering scent of your perfume was also an easy giveaway. You left a stray bit of hair on the table, too black to be Sergey's. There is an odd assortment of chairs about this table, from stout and heavy to the more frail and flimsy. The chair in front of the wine cups would only be comfortable for someone of light frame. Your bottle of wine is set to the left of your cup, therefore you are left-handed. The wine is an expensive vintage, therefore the choice of someone well moneyed. And as for not being particular with whom you are seen in public, you were sitting with a scribe noted for his lurid tales and scandalous behavior."

  "As you see," I finished, "once explained, my deductions suddenly plunge from the realm of wonder to a more mundane plane."

  "And what about the pet peacock slug named Vrtleyx?" she pressed.

  "Just a lucky guess."

  Morgana smiled and shook her head as if in awe. "It is as I have been told. Amazing. You must be magiked and not know of it."

  I breathed a secret sigh of relief when my deductions apparently proved correct. Two months ago I told a portly matron her suspected cheating husband was gay because he had been seen by one of my tails at a theatre in the arms of an extremely ugly and garishly dressed transvestite, only to learn my no-longer-to-be client had been out that night with her spouse.

  "Just the keen deductions of a trained private inquisitor," I modestly answered.

  "No, you see you were right in all your guesses, Master Barley. But I was sitting where you are now and pushed the cups and bottle to the side when I first left the table. And a lady never pours her own wine. That was done by Sergey. As for the wine, there were only too many patrons of this inn willing to send a bottle to my table."

  I maintained a strained smile while kicking myself for again trying to explain my deductions.

  "It is so amazing," Morgana again said while reaching out and stroking my cheek. "I have been told of your talent to always detect the truth, even if by false routes and apparent bumblings, but I did not believe it until now. Amazing.

  "And by the way, to my mother's great disappointment, I appear not to have inherited her magic abilities."

  I watched her stroll through the tables and out the door. Did I know where her mother lived? Who in Duburoake did not know that brooding monolith looming from lofty crags above the north side of Duburoake Bay--that which had been a temple of the evil carp-headed death god, Dorga?

  I turned to Sergey in puzzlement. "She leaves unaccompanied?"

  He shrugged. "She did not come with me. Who would molest the witch's daughter? I had heard there were interesting events transpiring at this out-of-the-way rathskeller. There were no pressing tasks today and I had no word of you, so I decided that it was my professional duty as a scribe to investigate this roadhouse for my journal."

  "Or more likely you needed to find a tavern where the patrons are not yet tired of buying you drinks and the barkeeper not holding a jar of your IOU's."

  Sergey ignored my comment and continued, "So I was here but minutes when our Lady Morgana made her appearance. She looked to be awaiting someone and stood alone at the doorway. I invited her to my table. It appears that person was you."

  "Hardly," I snorted, thinking of the turn of unlikely events that led me from the morgue to the Coal Diggers Tavern. "I did not even know I would be here until but hours ago."

  "Morgana is the daughter of a witch," he reminded me. "Who knows what occult traits cruise her veins like hungry sharks, quiet and unseen in the dark red depths of her blood until called upon?"

  "Hah," I laughed at his pulp fantasy phrasings and slapped the table. "I knew there had to be some reason you were not trying to muscle me out of the way of a pretty maiden. That is why you were not eagerly sniffing about Morgana as a dog in heat. You are fearful of her possible powers."

  "Close, I admit my idea of girlish 'charms' are not those that can turn a man into a tapeworm," he said. I was surprised to hear Sergey make the admission. "Though it is not Morgana I fear, but Morganna, the witch. No matter her daughter makes the mother out to be but a spoiled, disagreeable woman. The truth is much darker. There are too many dreadful tales to have her but some simple shrew."

  "I would not go on this foolish venture tomorrow night," continued Sergey in a lower voice now steeped in concern. "There are too many tales to dismiss Morganna's misdeeds as gossip or exaggeration. Is it this easy for the spider to draw you into her web--by sending a winsome hatchling?"

  "By the God-Whose-Name-Must-Not-Be-Mentioned," a shrill voice halted our conversation, "you are living a life of sin, creating a heavy debt that can only be lifted by giving tribute to Him-Whose-Name-Must-Not-Be-Mentioned. You wallow in corruption and your immortal spirit is doomed unless you now offer a sacrifice."

  A gaunt faced, jaundiced looking fellow spit out the words. He stood before our table with outstretched hands.

  "Be off, you silly simpleton," I ordered in ill temper. My aunt had been a follower of the God-Whose-Name-Must-Not-Be-Mentioned and I have more than my fill of cheerless memories associated with the order.

  "Tell me, how is Pete?" Sergey asked as if inquiring about a mutual friend, but the priest turned even paler under the candle lights and crouched back.

  "Blasphemer, how dare you say the name of Him-Whose-Name-Must-Not-Be-Mentioned!"

  "Pete? Pete is the name of Him-Whose-Name-Must-Not-Be-Mentioned?" I asked Sergey in disbelief.

  The priest whirled and wove a number of intricate hand signs in the air before my face. "You too will go to Hades for such an abomination. Silence your odious tongue."

  "What kind of name is Pete for a god?" I wondered out loud.

  "Not much of one," answered my friend while the priest looked as if to have a paroxysm. "I mean, there are still plenty of good names about for a god. Take Baldergon or Mytakel. Even Honesdred would be better that Pete. No wonder they do not want to speak his name. Pete, imagine that."

  "All those years being dragged by my aunt by the ear to a temple with a god named Pete," I continued. "I don't think I would have been so fearful in that dark, dank temple with those dour priests if I had but known the god was called Pete. I surmise that it just goes to show you what be in a name. I mean, who could be intimidated by a god named Pete? Who names a god, anyway? The parents? What are their names, Willy and Winny?"

  The shaman was now looking wildly about the inn. "You must be still. T'is sacrilege to be bantering about Him-Whose-Name-Must-Not-Be-Mentioned."

  "Tell me, how did you discover the name of Him-Whose-Name-Must-Not-Be-Mentioned?" I asked Sergey.

  "I was bedding a priestess of the temple and every night she would scream, 'Oh Pete, oh Pete.' It did not take a ferret to deduce that one."

  "It's private inquisitor," I, by rote, reminded my friend. "You know, Pete could have been her boyfriend."

  "Say, you could be right. It could have been a past boyfriend," Sergey admitted then looked at the priest, "but that appears not to be the case."

  "Sacrilege, sacrilege," the priest began shouting. "These heretics have blasphemed Him-Whose-Name-Must-Not-Be-Mentioned. They must die."

  "For Pete's sake," Sergey tried out-yelling him. "Be still, I am getting a headache."

  If we had been in a temple of Him-Whose-Name-Must-Not-Be-Mentioned, then maybe the priest's cries would have elicited some ruinous response. But Glavendale is a nation of mixed origins and religions. Gazing about the dark interior of the inn, I could espy several followers of the Uncle of Karn, one or two Tosters, and a Bilamrian Secessionist, but no followers of Him-Whose-Name-Must-Not-Be-Mentioned. The rest of the patrons, like me, were probably skeptics.

  I stopped in my inventory when my eyes locked with a patron who was garbed as a pilgrim of Dorga. He s
at motionless at a table pressed against a wall not far from a window that was so grimy as to be opaque. We stared at each other and for a brief moment it was as if sound and motion had perished from the world. Here was a malevolent being who made the other rogues in the tavern seem meek--a rabid wolf among dogs. He turned back to his plate to lift his fork and the spell was broken.

  For the next 15 minutes Sergey pumped me on my latest perils. I again made him promise not to print any of it until the case was closed.

  "I must be going now, Jak."

  Sergey had risen to his feet, pausing to grip the back of his chair to steady himself. "The Duburoake coach will be arriving soon and I don't care to miss it and walk back to town. You really must pay more attention to your wardrobe. The disheveled ferret look can be carried too far. It looks as if you have slept in that jerkin for several days."