Dwellings Debacle

by David Lee Stone

  “I dare you to annoy it,” he said.

  “You what?”

  “I DARE you …”

  “To annoy the hamster?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, you can’t be serious …”

  “Go on, then.”

  “HOW in the name of sanity am I supposed to annoy a hamster?”

  Jimmy shrugged.

  “Flick its ear or something; make fun of it.”

  “If you think for one second I’m talking to a hamster in the middle of the Ferret, you’re sorely mistaken.”

  “All right then, pull its leg or something …”

  “You’re INSANE, Jimmy.”

  “Ha! You’re frightened to upset it, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer.”

  “Oh well, I’ll have to show you then …”

  Jimmy crouched down and placed the hamster on the straw-strewn floor of the inn. Then he raised his leg and prepared to bring his boot down hard on the shaking rodent.

  “What are you doing?” Obegarde demanded. “You’ll crush the thing!”

  Jimmy grinned.

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”

  He brought his foot down, hard, to the accompaniment of a very brief squeak.

  Jimmy looked down, a terrible expression on his face.

  “You’re right,” Obegarde observed, stroking his chin. “It looks really mad.”

  Jimmy lifted a leg, looked at the bottom of his shoe.

  “I don’t understand it,” he said, his lower lip trembling. “That hamster was supposed to be invincible.”

  “I’m not sure about that,” said Obegarde, whistling between his teeth. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if it came back to haunt you.”

  He stood, walked over to the bar and deposited his empty tankard on the counter.

  “Who is Kyn Blistering, anyway?”

  “You really don’t know?”

  “I wouldn’t ask if I knew, would I?”

  Jimmy sighed. “Well, Kyn Blistering was this incredible wizard: he used to magically enhance small creatures so that they grew in size when they were annoyed. He used to have rats ten meters long, spiders three meters tall, and there was even talk of a flea the size of a monkey. And they were all INVULNERABLE.”

  “And who told you about Kyn Blistering?”

  Jimmy shrugged.

  “This guy I met in the Market Place on Wednesday lunchtime.”

  “Right.” Obegarde nodded. “Did he, by any chance, sell you the hamster as well?”

  “Yeah! How did you know that?”

  The vampire shrugged.

  “Just psychic, I guess.” He clambered to his feet. “Oh well, so much for weapons of mass destruction,” he muttered, heading toward the door of the inn. “I’ll have to settle for you, won’t I?”

  Jimmy glanced fearfully at the squashed hamster, then picked it up, put it in his breast pocket and slunk guiltily after Obegarde. His mood was not improved when they arrived outside, where a handsome young woman was waiting with two sturdy-looking horses. Jimmy felt uncomfortable almost immediately, and began to sweat.

  “Your daughter?” he guessed, nodding politely at the girl, who smiled back.

  “Indeed it is,” said Obegarde, patting the gravedigger companionably on the shoulder and whispering into his ear: “Don’t even think about it.”

  Eight

  AFTERNOON FOUND PARSNIP DAILY fast approaching an old boarding house that sat like a fat and lonely pigeon on the road out of Dullitch. He didn’t know this, of course; his attention was entirely focused on the road ahead of him. In fact, his concentration on the cart tracks was such that he walked straight into the front door of the property, causing the owner to come bolting out of the kitchen as if she were under attack by the hordes of hell. Daily observed, as he cowered back in surprise, that the woman was also armed with a heavy-duty shovel.

  “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?” she spat, showering him in the process. “You’re trespassin’ on private property. Now get out of here or I’ll do for you with me spade, right and proper.”

  “You would as well, wouldn’t you?” Daily gasped, rolling over and struggling to his feet. “As a matter of fact, fine lady, I’m here to … to … er … to …”

  “You’re here to what? Break in? Steal my washing-up water?”

  “NO! I was … er …”

  “Scoutin’ the place out for a raid later tonight, ya scum-suckin’ little maggot —”

  “NO! I’ve got this memory problem, you see …”

  “You’ll have more than a memory problem when I’m finished with you …”

  Daily shook his head, as if trying to dislodge a thought.

  “I’m sure I was …”

  “Well?”

  “Um …”

  “On official business,” finished Enoch Dwellings, riding up behind the tracker and glaring down at the landlady with all the self-importance he could muster. “I can certainly vouch for that.”

  The woman grimaced up at him. “And who the ’ell are you?” she demanded.

  “I,” came the reply, “am Enoch Dwellings, master detective … and the small dot you can see on the horizon is my assistant: not much of a horserider, I’m afraid.”

  The landlady sniffed.

  “What’s your business ’ere?”

  Dwellings leaned down and had a brief, but rather hushed, conversation with the tracker. Then he righted himself again.

  “Is this your boarding house?” he asked, nodding at the large building with the “Mrs. Meaker’s Boarding House” plaque hanging over the front porch.

  The landlady nodded.

  “Yeah; what of it?”

  “We have reason to believe that you are housing criminals of the worst order,” Dwellings went on, dismounting with incredible aplomb.

  “Rubbish,” snapped Mrs. Meaker. “We’re empty.”

  “Empty?” Dwellings echoed, raising an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”

  Mrs. Meaker sniffed, and gobbed a globule of phlegm onto the floor.

  “Bout as sure as a woman can be,” she said.

  “I see,” said Dwellings, giving Daily a significant glance. “Have you been vacant for long?”

  Mrs. Meaker shook her head.

  “Oh no, we had a full house here earlier in the week.”

  Dwellings’ face lit up like a lantern.

  “How many?” he asked.

  “Er … three of ’em, there were.”

  “Did they all arrive at the same time?”

  “Yeah.”

  “On a cart?”

  “Yep.”

  “A cart covered in drop cloths?”

  “Dunno. I didn’t bother to look.”

  Wheredad arrived at the house, holding on to his horse as if he’d just been on a journey to purgatory and back.

  “Do you remember what they looked like?” Dwellings continued, trying to stop his hands shaking.

  “Yeah,” said Mrs. Meaker, rubbing her hands together. “Though my own memory’s not been that great lately …”

  Dwellings smiled at her knowingly and, reaching into his pocket, produced a handful of crowns.

  “Will this help?” he said, extending his hand.

  Mrs. Meaker counted the coins.

  “I doubt it,” she said, miserably.

  “How about this,” said Wheredad, passing over a money pouch of his own.

  “Ah,” said Mrs. Meaker, scratching her ear. “I feel something coming back …”

  “It’s a miracle,” muttered Dwellings, darkly.

  “If my mind serves me well,” she chattered, greedily pocketing both offerings while she spoke, “there was a big, bruisy sort, a thin, shifty little bloke and a young man with scars and a ’ead o’ blonde ’air. Don’t quote me on it, mind …”

  “Oh, we won’t,” said Dwellings, biting his lip to stop himself exploding with anger. “You don’t know which direction they c
ame from, do you?”

  Mrs. Meaker licked her lips, then pointed north.

  “You know,” she said, “I reckon they was from around …”

  “… Crust way?”

  “Yeah! Their clothes were kinda funny, you know. All except the blonde one; he wore a sort o’ cloak with a funny ’ood on it.”

  Dwellings nodded, and remounted his horse.

  “We’re leaving,” he said. “Daily, see if you can find the track further up the road.”

  “Aren’t we going to search the house?” Wheredad inquired, grabbing at the reins of his own beast.

  “Well,” said the detective, dismissively, “I very much doubt if they’ve hidden you-know-who in a boarding house on the main Dullitch Road, but you’re more than welcome to look if you’ve a mind to …”

  “Oi!” called Mrs. Meaker, suddenly feeling left out of the conversation. “What’s all this about, exac’ly?”

  “I don’t know,” Dwellings shouted back, forcing his horse into a steady trot. “How much is it worth to tell you?”

  Nine

  OBEGARDE, LUSA AND JIMMY Quickstint galloped out of Dullitch on two old but nevertheless remarkably fast horses.

  The vampire reached back and slapped the flank of his steed, causing it to bolt on ahead for a time, but he was soon caught up.

  “Couldn’t we have found another ride?” yelled Jimmy, trying not to wince when the vampire’s daughter breathed in his ear. He hadn’t been this close to a woman since he’d sat on his grandmother’s knee.

  “Don’t worry,” Lusa said, ducking a tree branch that Jimmy gave her no warning of. “I’m sure we can manage just fine; would you, er, would you like me to lead?”

  “No,” said Jimmy, quickly, wondering what he’d need to hold on to if their positions were reversed. “I get sick if I’m on the back.”

  They rode on down the Dullitch road, past acres of thick forest, lines of burnt-out mills and an old and somewhat dilapidated guest house, where a large, aggressive-looking woman stood in the garden, shaking her fist at two shrinking shapes in the distance.

  “That’s them,” said Obegarde, pointing in the same direction.

  “How can you tell?” said Jimmy, trying not to breath out in case his stomach flopped over his trousers.

  “It’s easy,” said Obegarde, pointing back at the landlady. “Dwellings is the only person I know who gets people that mad …”

  Ten

  “YOU’RE ME?” SAID CURFEW, peering at his captor.

  “No,” said the impostor, “but the resemblance is remarkable, isn’t it?”

  “Sorcery,” Curfew snapped, wishing he had a sword. “Either that or you’re a shapeshifter.”

  “You were closer with your first guess, Viscount, though I do have two very talented shapeshifters in my service; it took me a long time to find them.”

  “Who are you?”

  “That is not important. What is important is that we are determined to take the throne of Illmoor for ourselves, and we will not be kept from the task by any … minor inconveniences.”

  Curfew took a step back into the shadows, and his face darkened.

  “What makes you think you have any right to my kingdom?” he asked.

  “Nothing at all, Lord Curfew,” said the impostor. “But then … we do intend to take it, all the same. Davenpaw! Rhark! Please show this noble wretch the meaning of the word ‘pain’ …”

  Footsteps approached, and the cell door swung open. Before Curfew had a chance to leap at his captor, a heavy-set man with a thick shock of hair entered the room and began to crack his knuckles. Curfew recognized him as one of the deliverymen he had interrupted in the palace corridor on the night of his kidnapping. The man was followed, at length, by the swordfighter Curfew had fallen to the same evening.

  The viscount snarled.

  “If it isn’t Innesell,” he said, mockingly.

  Rhark smiled at the mention of the name.

  “I know, I know: pure genius, wasn’t it?”

  “Stay back,” Curfew warned, pulling himself along the wall as his attackers advanced. “If you attempt to harm me in any way …”

  “… you’ll what?” Davenpaw asked, to mocking laughter from his companion. “Banish us from your kingdom? Hahahaha!” He continued to crack his knuckles.

  Curfew took a deep breath.

  “Listen, I have power …”

  “We know that,” said the voice of the impostor, from the doorway, “and very soon it will be our power.”

  Curfew finally managed to pull himself away from the wall. He held his hands in front of him.

  “B-but you’ve made a terrible mistake …”

  “Oh really?”

  The impostor clapped his hands and the two servants parted to afford him a better view of the viscount.

  “And what might that be, exactly?”

  Curfew took a deep breath, and tried to keep his voice level as he spoke.

  “I’ll tell you if you let me live,” he mumbled, annoyed at himself for the fear that was eating away at him.

  The royal impostor smiled, and tapped his lips with a thin finger.

  “Hmm … an interesting proposition.”

  The two aggressors backed away a little more, as their master deliberated.

  “OK,” he said, eventually. “You tell me what it is that I’m supposed to have missed and I’ll let you live on down here indefinitely.”

  Curfew staggered back, licking his cracked lips.

  “I have your word?” he prompted.

  The impostor nodded, and entered the cell.

  “You do.”

  “Very well. You may have me, but you don’t have one of my Seal Rings; you’ll find that you need one in order to be crowned Lord of Dullitch.”

  The impostor smiled, a dark and insipid grin that conspired to make him look even more menacing than he had done in the corridor outside.

  “Thank you for telling me my mistake,” he said, sarcastically. “But please don’t worry unduly on my behalf: I do, in fact, have one of the rings of which you speak. My slithering friend kindly retrieved it from the depths of that pathetically guarded hovel you call a palace. We would have got them both if it wasn’t for an unfortunate incident in the sewers: still, I’m not greedy.”

  He reached into his pocket and produced one of the viscount’s unmistakable Seal Rings.

  Curfew grimaced.

  “If my home is such a disgrace, impostor, then why do you go to such lengths to steal it?”

  The shade-viscount burst into fits of laughter.

  “Haha! But when I rule the capital, my palace will be like no other in the history of Illmoor! The city shall shine with the splendor of a thousand marble towers, the harbor will be awash with trading ships and I shall rebuild the great Elistalis in my own secret image, for ever mocking the curtain drawn over the eyes of your dim-witted citizens! Hahahahaha! Oh, and I’m afraid I’m going to kill you anyway …”

  The impostor slipped the Seal Ring onto his finger and grinned.

  “I wish you luck in your endeavor,” Curfew spat, a sudden surge of confidence enabling him to mock the awed tones of his enemy. “But I assure you that you won’t need to build the Elistalis in your secret image …”

  The impostor’s smile didn’t fade, but his nostrils flared. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that the Seal Ring is itself enchanted … and when you put it on, your true identity will be revealed.” Curfew beamed a smile of his own, then hawked up some phlegm and spat on the floor at his captor’s feet. “It’s a defensive mechanism, so that the throne can never be taken by anyone not of the blood. It takes a few seconds, so you’ll start to feel the effects right about now. The best thing is: there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it …”

  A slap from the man called Davenpaw almost knocked the viscount senseless; Curfew flew back against the wall, collapsing to the ground and badly jarring his shoulder. From his prone position, he
stared up in frank disbelief at the impostor, who had remained icily calm and whose features were unaltered.

  “I don’t understand,” Curfew cried, his voice now fraught with despair. “You’re not changing!”

  The impostor leaned over the viscount.

  “No, my lord, I am not … and you might venture to ask yourself why …?”

  Curfew shook his head, as if trying to dislodge the terrible thought he was having.

  “Y-you can’t be of the blood!” he screamed. “You can’t be!”

  The impostor shrugged.

  “Can I not? Oh … then how am I able to defy the enchanted ring? Some extra special sorcery, perhaps? I can weave dreams and change skins, my lord, but I can assure you that my powers do not extend to countering the effects of ancient magic!” He turned to his hesitant servants. “Rhark; I want you to sharpen my sword: I think I’ll dispatch the good viscount myself.”

  “B-but you said I could finish him, master! You promised!”

  “Silence, man! Just do as you’re told, or else you can join him!”

  Rhark stuttered and gabbled an answer, then bowed and departed.

  “Very good,” snapped the impostor, turning to Davenpaw. “And you, my friend, can stay here to teach this noble fool a lesson he will never forget, at least for the remainder of his all too few hours.” With that, he turned and swept out of the room.

  Viscount Curfew grimaced as silence descended on the cell, and the hairy giant came lumbering toward him …

  Eleven

  “I DON’T LIKE TO BRAG,” Daily said, as Dwellings rode up beside him, “but this is going to be a walk in the park for me.”

  “Oh?” said the detective, somewhat doubtfully. “And why is that, exactly?”

  “The tracks,” Daily replied, squinting up at his new employer with a gap-toothed grin. “They’re the easiest tracks I’ve ever followed; the imprint is really distinctive, and the pacing of the cart makes the whole run impossible to lose sight of.”

  Dwellings pursed his lips.

  “I’m glad you’re so confident,” he said. “So how long do you think it’s going to take us to track these folks down? A day? Two?”

  Daily put his head to one side, looked up at Dwellings with a thoughtful expression.