“And what of Sirrah Wolfgang, here? What is to be his part in the episode?” demanded the mage.
“Well, actually,” responded Wolfgang, “I’m not playing any part in the affair—directly, that is to say.”
“Then why are you here?” The wizard appeared most aggrieved.
“Well, to begin with, I’m the one who found out about the Rap Sheet. Just got here yesterday with the news. But that’s a small thing. What’s more important is the key role I play now.” Here the giant exuded a vast smugness. “I’m the consultant, you see.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The consultant—the expert adviser.” Then, seeing no comprehension on the wizard’s face, the lunatic elaborated.
“You need expert advice on something like this, man! I mean, the whole idea’s crazy—stealing a Rap Sheet from under the noses of the Cruds under cover of bashing a gala event! Who but a madwoman would come up with such a scheme? Who but madmen would agree to participate? And who then better to serve as your expert consultant,” he concluded with pride, “than a demented bedlamite escaped from an insane asylum. At your service!”
Here Wolfgang rose and took a bow, then said: “And let me say—speaking from a lifetime of applying my twin powers of madness and amnesia—that in my capacity as expert consultant I approve wholeheartedly of the plan. It’s crackbrained! Nutty as a walnut grove! Deranged beyond belief!”
He resumed his seat. “So it’s bound to come off swimmingly.”
The wizard did not seem entirely satisfied with this explanation. Indeed, to put it more accurately, Wolfgang’s words appeared to reopen in his mind the entire question of participating in the exploit. But the witch Magrit was, as the gentle reader has perhaps already deduced, a fearsome bully, and she soon quelled the mage’s incipient revolt. Then did she command the various persons present to retire for rest and refreshment, for the adventure ahead promised great exertions for all concerned.
The assembly dispersed, all going their separate ways. Yet, strangely enough, the lunatic Wolfgang arrested the dwarf as Shelyid was going out the door.
“A moment of your time, little one,” said the giant.
Shelyid frowned, glanced at the back of his master, even now receding down the stairs.
“Oh, but, sir,” apologized the gnome, “I can’t talk now—I have to go get the master’s sack from downstairs where we left it and—”
“Bother the sack!” interrupted the lunatic. “You’ll have time enough. I just wanted to ask you—have you ever been on an adventure before?”
“Oh no, sir!” exclaimed Shelyid. “I’m just a dwarf, a miserable dwarf. I’ve never—” Shelyid paused, gulped. “Well, actually I’m real scared, although not as scared as I would have been a few weeks ago, maybe, but still—” He paused, gulped again, then said softly: “I just hope I don’t let everybody else down.”
“You’ll do fine!” boomed Wolfgang. “Why, you’ve the makings of a daredevil, you do!”
“You think so?” asked Shelyid, not with any great conviction. “Uh, sir.”
“Don’t call me ‘sir’—absurd, calling a certified psychotic a ‘sir’! And yes, I know you’ll take to adventuring like a fish to water. Just remember the two mottoes of all great crazy heroes.”
“What’re they?”
Wolfgang held up two fingers.
“One: Don’t get even, go mad. Two: When the going gets tough, the tough go nuts.”
“I’ll try to remember. But I have to go!” And so saying, the dwarf scurried away.
PART XVI
In Which We
Return Once Again to
the Autobiography of the
Scoundrel Sfrondrati-Piccolomini,
this Portion of Whose Story Consists,
Yet Again, of a Crude and Unscrupulous Attempt
to Win the Favor of the Reader, by Means
of Mawkish Romance and Melodrama,
Thereby Confirming—Yet Again!—
His Unscrupulous Character
and Nature.
The Autobiography of Benvenuti Sfondrati-Piccolomini,
Episode 8: Horses, Hurts, Heroes and Halloween
So it was in such a strained silence that Gwendolyn and I began our journey to the General’s estate. Two days, the trip would require, or so I had been told. Longer, I suspected, judging from the quality of the nags we were riding.
The expression on Gwendolyn’s face was forbidding and withdrawn. At first, I thought it was hostility directed toward me. Then, I thought it was hostility toward The Roach. Eventually—such is human stupidity—I realized that it was not hostility at all, but a deep grief kept under fierce control.