“The vainglorious fools!” cackled Wolfgang. “The incredible idiots!” He began laughing insanely.
Gwendolyn glared at him. “They’re going to bring a Rap Sheet to Grotum to complete their conquest of our homeland. And you think that’s funny?”
Wolfgang wiped tears from his eyes. “But, my dear Gwendolyn, don’t you see the irony of the whole thing? The fools propose to bring one of Joe’s great relics to subdue Joe’s own homeland. Doesn’t it strike you that there’s a hint of folly in the logic? Typical Cruds!” Here the giant imitated Inkman’s cold voice: ” ‘As the Angel says, first do in your friends. Then your enemies will fall.’ ” He fell again into his horrible mad laughter.
“I love it!” he cried. “The Ozarine paranoids will hide the massacre of the ferret pack from the Fangs, so the Fangs—who know the lurking danger in Grotum better than anyone!—won’t be able to get in the way of the Ozarines when they come trampling all over the place and rouse the lurking danger to full fury.”
Gwendolyn was still glaring at him.
Wolfgang shook his head. “Gwendolyn, the whole problem here is that you don’t really understand the Joe question.”
“I don’t want to hear about it!” she snapped. “All I know is that the Ozarine Empire—which has already half swallowed Grotum!—now intends to gulp us down complete. What do you propose to do? Sit around drooling and giggling while we wait for some myth to rescue us?”
“Well, not exactly. I do believe Joe will need a little help along the way. But don’t let me stop you. I quite admire your efforts! Sally forth—by all means! Smite the Ozarine with your cleaver!”
I thought that last was an unfortunate turn of phrase—the more so when Gwendolyn turned her hot glare onto me.
I spread my hands in a calming gesture. “Madame, let me assure you that—”
“Don’t call me ‘Madame’!” she barked.
I took a deep breath, tried again. “Gwendolyn, then. It’s true I’m an Ozarine. What of it? I’m an artist, before all else. I care not a fig for the pomposities of the rulers of Ozar. Certainly not the Angel Jimmy Jesus and that whole lot of Cruds! Nasty creatures. Besides, like every genuine artist I know, my heart lies with Grotum. It’s the center of the world’s art! Its music!”
“Its mischief!” giggled Wolfgang.
I nodded at him. “Perhaps, perhaps. It’s certainly a livelier place than Ozar. At first, I thought Goimr an unutterably dull place—”
“It is,” spoke Wolfgang and Gwendolyn in unison.
“—but here I am—not a day since I landed—and already I’ve been arrested, tortured, been in a bloody swordfight, hidden in a secret hidey-hole, spied on Cruds—what next? What next?”
“Next you’ll have to make your escape,” said Wolfgang. “The both of you.”
He turned to Gwendolyn, who was—and I was glad to see it—calmer in her aspect.
“I assume you’ll be trying to follow Zulkeh—when you discover where he went—to deliver Hildegard’s message.”
“A pox on Zulkeh!” came the response. “A pox on Hildegard and her damned schemes! I’ve got better things to do than be chasing all over Grotum looking for some obscure sorcerer. I’ve got to warn my comrades. If the movement isn’t prepared for it, the Rap Sheet will cut through us like a scythe. Even with an advance warning, it’s going to be bad enough. Besides, I don’t even know where the wizard went.”
The key moments of decision come unexpected in life. If I have learned nothing else, this I have. And when they come, it amazes me how instantly they are made. Later, musing over the events, I was struck by how light were the feathers that wafted my fortune. A dwarf’s voice, a woman’s frown—these the things that sent me off on a road unforeseen.
I had told the police nothing, but now I spoke.
“The wizard—Zulkeh, that is his name? Accompanied by a dwarf servant?”
“His apprentice,” corrected Wolfgang. “Shelyid, his name is.”
“Yes—an ugly creature. But he seemed a sweet boy. Anyway, they’ve gone to Prygg.” I told them of my encounter with Zulkeh and Shelyid at the travel station, and the words I overheard spoken by the wizard.