“We do,” Sot agreed.
They waited, their presentation apparently finished. Ben wondered if they had simply run out of gas. “What sort of problem do you have?” he asked solicitously.
They glanced at each other. Sharp mole faces crinkled and tiny, pointed teeth showed liked daggers.
“Trolls,” Fillip said.
“Crag Trolls,” Sot said.
Again they waited. Ben cleared his throat. “What about them?” Whereas he had known nothing of the G’home Gnomes, he did know something of the Crag Trolls.
“They have taken our people,” Fillip said.
“Not all of our people, but a rather substantial number,” Sot corrected.
“They missed us,” Fillip said.
“We were away,” Sot said.
“They raided our burrows and dens, and they carried our people off with them,” Fillip said.
“They seized everyone they found,” Sot said.
“They took them to Melchor to work the mines and the furnaces,” Fillip said.
“They took them to the fires,” Sot grieved.
Ben was beginning to get the picture. The Crag Trolls were a rather primitive race of beings living in the mountains of Melchor. Their primary business was mining ores from the rock and converting them in their furnaces to weapons and armor which they sold to the other inhabitants of the valley. The Crag Trolls were a reclusive and unfriendly bunch, but they seldom provoked trouble with their neighbors and had never used slave labor.
He glanced past the gnomes to Questor and Abernathy.
The wizard shrugged and the scribe gave him one of his patented ‘I told you so’ looks.
“Why did the Crag Trolls seize your people?” Ben asked the gnomes.
Fillip and Sot glanced at each other thoughtfully, then shook their heads.
“We do not know, great High Lord,” Fillip said.
“We do not,” Sot said.
They were without doubt the worst liars Ben had ever encountered. Nevertheless, he decided to be tactful. “Why do you think the Crag Trolls seized your people?” he pressed.
“That would be difficult to say,” Fillip said.
“Very difficult,” Sot agreed.
“There could be any number of reasons,” Fillip said.
“Any number,” Sot echoed.
“It is possible, I suppose, that in foraging we might have appropriated property which the trolls felt belonged to them,” Fillip speculated.
“It is possible that we might have claimed property we believed abandoned but which, in truth, still belonged to them,” Sot added.
“Mistakes of that sort sometimes do happen,” Fillip said.
“Sometimes,” Sot said.
Ben nodded. He didn’t believe for a minute that any foraging from the Crag Trolls had been anything short of deliberate. The only mistake had been in the gnomes’ belief that they could get away with it.
“If a mistake of this sort were to happen,” Ben observed carefully, “wouldn’t the Crag Trolls simply have asked for the missing property back?”
The gnomes looked decidedly uncomfortable. Neither said anything.
Ben frowned. “What sort of property might have been misappropriated, do you think?” he asked them.
Fillip glanced down at his boots, and the toes wriggled uneasily. Sot’s ferret features twisted about and looked as if they might like to disappear into his fur.
“The trolls like to keep pets,” Fillip said finally.
“The trolls are very fond of pets,” Sot added.
“They like the furry tree sloths most of all,” Fillip said.
“They give them to their children to play with,” Sot said.
“How can one tell wild furry tree sloths from pet furry tree sloths?” Fillip queried.
“How can one know which is which?” Sot queried.
A terrible suspicion crossed Ben’s mind. “You can always give back misappropriated pets, can’t you?” he asked them.
“Not always,” Fillip said, somehow managing to look mortified.
“No, not always,” Sot agreed.
Ben caught a glimpse of Abernathy out of the comer of his eye. His scribe’s hackles were raised up like the spikes of a cornered porcupine.
He looked back at the gnomes. “You ate those tree sloths, didn’t you?” he demanded.
Neither said a word. They looked down at their boots. They looked aside at the walls. They looked everywhere but at Ben. Abernathy gave a low, menacing growl, and Questor hushed him into silence. “Wait outside, please,” Ben told the gnomes. Fillip and Sot turned about quickly and scurried from the room, small rodent bodies swaying awkwardly with the movement. Fillip glanced back once as if he might say something more, then reconsidered and hurried out. Questor followed them to the door and closed it tightly behind them. Ben looked at his aides. “Well, what do you think?” Questor shrugged. “I think it is easier to catch and devour a tame furry tree sloth than a wild one.”