“Check that door, will you, Ignace?” said Greyboar, pointing to the normal-looking door. “Pays to be careful. But unless I miss my guess, this great ugly iron door’s the one where the business takes us.”
A moment later, his investigation completed, Ignace announced that the door led only to a corridor.
“Thought so,” grunted Greyboar. “That’s how the soldiers get in and out.” He grinned. “Can’t have common troops parading around while the great Cruddy’s engaged in sexual outré-course.”
A more solemn expression then came upon him, as he inspected the iron door, very thoughtfully. The strangler pursed his lips and whistled.
“Don’t much like the look of this. You’ll have noticed, Ignace, that these great bars are all designed to keep whatever’s on the other side of that door from getting to the warm little bodies of the people who hang out on this side of the door.”
“I am not stupid,” came the agent’s reply.
“No, no, you’re not,” agreed Greyboar. “Irascible, yes. Dyspeptic, yes. Unpleasant, frequently. A pain in the ass, as often as not. But stupid, no.”
“Me—a pain in the ass?” shrilled Ignace. “You should talk!” The agent glared at the door. “The Old Geister only knows what kind of horror’s lurking on the other side of that door.”
“Yes, and we’re about to find out,” responded Greyboar, placidly enough. “Come on, let’s get to it.” And so saying, the strangler made short work of removing the bars from the door. A moment later, the door itself stood open. A dark passageway loomed beyond, its end not in sight.
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” announced Greyboar, heading down the passageway. Zulkeh followed, with Shelyid close behind. But before the dwarf could pass through the door, Ignace stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. Shelyid looked up at the agent, suspicion and wariness plain on his face.
“Look, kid,” began Ignace, then, after a pause: “Look, Shelyid, I’m sorry about what I did back at Magrit’s place. I shouldn’t have picked on you the way I did. I just—well, it’s like the big guy says, the truth is sometimes I’m an asshole.” He stopped, groped for words, found none.
The frown on Shelyid’s face cleared, and he said: “It’s okay. I don’t think probably anybody can get through life without once in a while being an asshole.” He stuck out his little hand. Ignace took it and the two midgets shook hands. Acting for all the world like gentlemen!
“We’d better go,” said Shelyid. He made to enter the passageway, then turned back. “I’m sorry I chased you around with a knife and tried to chop you into pieces,” he said. Suddenly his face contorted, in a most astonishing manner.
And a sight it was, too, to see dozens of the Alfredae rushing to the scene, chittering with excitement. Long hours were spent in the days thereafter, scribe consulting scribe, logs and records examined, notes and diaries subjected to the most detailed scrutiny. Throughout, I kept a dignified silence, as befitted the Alfred. Of course, I am the Alfred, and therefore I knew the answer from the beginning, long before the lesser notaries announced, in solemn clan gathering, the official recording of a hitherto unknown event.
Shelyid had grinned.
CHAPTER XXIII.
A Horror Heard. A Wizard’s Uninterrupted Exposition. A Horror Seen. And a Horror It Is, Too! The Strangler Prepares. A Dwarf’s Folly. The Unforeseen Results Therefrom. The Relic Found. The Mage is Disgruntled!
The nature of the horror lurking at the end of the corridor was known to our heroes long before it was seen. There was no mistaking the source of the bloodcurdling roars and bellows echoing down the corridor from some place still ahead.
“A snarl,” announced Zulkeh. “A rock snarl, if I am not mistaken. The tone and timbre is similar, of course, to that of a mountain snarl. But that slight tremor at the upper registers—no, ’tis a rock snarl, ’tis certain.”
“How did the lousy Crud get himself a tame snarl?” demanded Ignace. “I thought the things couldn’t be captured and tamed.”
“They cannot be tamed,” responded the wizard firmly. “Indeed, ’tis this very impossibility of domesticating the snarl—in any of its varieties—which most clearly distinguishes the monster from all other manner of wild beasts. On this all scholars agree.