“He hired me to strangle my own guru,” growled the strangler. “Imagine! What else was I to do?”
Zulkeh frowned. “Do I understand you to say, sirrah Greyboar, that you yourself are an acolyte of the—former—King of Sundjhab’s teachings?”
“I certainly am!” boomed the strangler. “A novice, I admit—I’m still working on my Languor.”
“Then why did you strangle him?” demanded the mage.
Greyboar grimaced. “Well, actually I wasn’t a follower of my guru when I took on the job. The King—bless him—showed me the Way right at the last moment.”
“Greyboar had what you might call a deathbed conversion,” chipped in Ignace. “The King’s deathbed, that is.” He looked innocently away from Greyboar’s fierce gaze.
“But still,” protested Zulkeh, “the truth once known to you, why did you finish the choke?”
Greyboar looked offended. “I’d already taken the money for the job. Professional ethics, you know.”
Zulkeh nodded his head. “Of course, of course. Professional ethics, of course. Yes, quite so!”
“May we get on with our business?” asked Magrit. “Or would you two rather turn this into a leisurely chat on the nature of ethics, morality, and whatnot neither of you knows squat about?”
Wizard and strangler glared at the witch, but fell silent.
“Anyway,” continued Magrit, “as I was saying, of the five Rap Sheets known to exist, the other three—this is a certainty—are in the possession of the Imperial Republic of Ozar. Have been for some time, in fact. Helps explain the historic success of the Ozarine—”
“—in its rapacious gobbling up of the world,” chimed in Les Six in unison.
“But what’s not widely known,” said Magrit, ignoring the interruption, “is that one of Ozarae’s Rap Sheets has been brought right here to Prygg. Only a few days ago.”
“The Ozarine have brought such a precious relic here to Grotum?” inquired the mage. “Whatever for?”
“Is he really that stupid?” demanded the first.
Before the usual round could begin—or the wizard do more than sputter—Magrit took command of the discussion again.
“Keep personalities out of it!” she snapped. “And he’s not actually stupid, he just lives in the clouds, on his head, thinking the earth is vapor above.” She forestalled Zulkeh’s indignation with a sharp gesture.
“In answer to your question, Zulkeh, the Ozarine have brought it to Grotum to aid them in their commercial, industrial, financial and you-can-practically-name-it conquest of our sub-continent. And it will be a big help to them, too, let me tell you. The biggest problem the Ozarines have is suppressing the revolutionary movement of Grotum.” She sneered. “That’s not from lack of cooperation from the Groutch regimes, of course—in Prygg especially, which over the past two years has become an Ozarean satrapy in all but name. The upper classes in Pryggia today aren’t but lackeys for their Ozarine masters.”
“Never were much good at their best,” stated the second.
“As sorry a lot of drones, churchmen and landlords as ever plagued a land,” agreed the third.
“As rapacious as your Sfinctrian aristocrats, as incompetent as your Goimric nobility,” concurred the fourth.
“Former worms, current tapeworms,” added the fifth.
“Here’s to the downfall of parasites!” cried the sixth. This was apparently something in the way of a rabble toast, for the six malcontents raised their teacups in unison, pinkies politely extended like so much firewood, and slurped noisily.
Magrit continued:
“The Rap Sheet rests in the care of the Ozarean sub-secretary to the third consul for agricultural affairs, one Rupert Inkman. He’s also the Groutch chief of station for the Ozarean Senate’s Commission to Repel Unbridled Disruption.”
“A Crud!” exclaimed Greyboar.
“That he is,” agreed the first.
“One of your greater Cruds, in fact,” commented the second.
“The Butcher of the Rellenos,” added the third.
“Reports direct to the Angel Jimmy Jesus himself,” elaborated the fourth.
“He’s also a subsidiary of the Consortium,” embroidered the fifth. “One of their most profitable concerns.”
Fortunately, the sixth’s contribution—which should no doubt have led to another grotesque toast—was cut short by Zulkeh.
“One moment, madame! I wish to return to the beginning of your exposition. I fear my mind has been so distracted by the news of the sad death of the King of the Sundjhab and the appearance in Grotum of a Rap Sheet that I have let fall aside the chief point. Do I understand you to say that you wish my assistance in the theft of this Rap Sheet from its rightful owner? If so, you may rest assured that I will have no part in such a criminal—”