Their brazen role began at once.
“The lad needs a new contract!” cried the first.
“A complete overhaul of his terms of employment!” exclaimed the second.
“But he’s a youth,” moaned the third, “inexperienced at the negotiating table.”
“A pawn in the hands of the boss,” wailed the fourth, “sure to be shackled in the exploiter’s cunning twist of phrase and subtlety of clause.”
“Desperately in need of experienced counsel, lest he sign himself over to helotry,” opined the fifth.
“Stewards, to the fore!” bellowed the sixth. And with these words, Les Six pulled up their chairs, forming a semicircle around the mage.
Zulkeh stared at the half-dozen great and grinning faces, much as a cornered fox examines the muzzles of the hounds.
“Perhaps,” said the mage, coughing, “we should first examine the great relic which we have—just this very night!—obtained in order to determine the nature of our enemies. Our enemies, gentlemen! Who are—perhaps this very moment!—closing in, their black hearts filled with—”
“Do not concern yourself with the enemies of the future,” counseled the first.
“When you are surrounded by the enemies of the present,” advised the second.
Here Magrit intervened. “The Rap Sheet’ll wait till tomorrow, Zulkeh. And whatever enemies we’ve got are so fuddled tonight they’ll have a hard enough time finding their peckers to take a piss. No, you just concentrate on this business—it’ll take you hours as it is. The rest of us can go to bed.”
And so saying, she strode out of the room, stopping along the way to take Wolfgang by the hand.
“C’mon, tall and handsome, let’s get laid.”
Greyboar rose, stretched. “I think Ignace and I will turn in, also. Been a long day.”
The wizard looked at him with appeal. “Sirrah Greyboar! Perhaps—you have been a most calming influence—the heat of negotiations—”
“Me?” cried Greyboar. “You want me to stick my nose into the affairs of a different trade?” He shook his head, clucking. ” ‘Tisn’t done, just isn’t. Not at all proper! Besides, I wouldn’t be any help, anyway. I don’t really know a thing about negotiating complicated labor contracts. The fine points just don’t come up in my profession. The basic provisions of my contracts are simple and straightforward, so I hardly ever run into difficulties with my employers. They pay me what they owe me when the job’s done, or”—he cracked his knuckles; the house shook—”I collect from the estate.”
He turned to his agent: “C’mon Ignace. Let’s hit the sack.” The two departed.
“Down to business,” said the third, rubbing his hands.
“Point one,” stated the fourth. “This ‘master’ business has got to go.”
” ‘Tis demeaning to the laborer,” explained the fifth.
“And most inaccurate,” happily added the sixth, “as you’ll soon see for yourself when examining the provisions which are about to be included in your new contract with the dwarf Shelyid.”
The first: “Who is hereafter referred to as the short-statured-but-fully-qualified-apprentice Shelyid.”
And this was but the beginning!
CHAPTER XXVII.
Enemies Revealed—But a Deeper Mystery Bared. A Lunatic’s Exposition. A Mage’s Great Disquiet. A Resolved Apprentice. Traveling Companions Found. Forward the Mage!
“Magrit!” spoke the mage. “I require your expert assistance here. Can you not leave this—this obscene chortling and plotting to a later time?”
The witch looked up from mixing potions. “Huh?” she asked. “Oh. Yes, I suppose so.” She rose, muttering fiercely, and stamped over to the table where Zulkeh was examining the Rap Sheet.
“I still can’t believe,” she snarled, “that two-faced rat! That smiling little slimeball! All this time, pretending to be my friend—and he even had me fooled, I got to admit.”
It had been some time earlier, in mid-morning, when the various parties involved in the theft of the Rap Sheet had reconvened in Magrit’s chamber. Greyboar and Ignace were alone absent, off on some business of their own. The witch had demanded to be the first to examine the relic. Zulkeh began to protest, then wearily nodded his assent. And truly the mage seemed exhausted by the events of the night past—not from the adventure itself, but from the rigors of the bargaining table.
“From that day forward,” he was known to say in later life, “the chambers of the Inquisition held no fears for me. The rack—I laugh! The wheel—I sneer! The whipping post—beneath my contempt!”