Oh, I was hot—hot.
“Bad enough we get hauled down here in the first place! For any reason! But at least Gwendolyn’s family so we got that excuse!” I took the time here to bestow a share of my furious glare on her. “Such as it is. Screwy, you ask me, chasing after an ex-boyfriend.”
Gwendolyn glared back. Normally, that would have shut me up—she’s such a scary woman—but not this time.
Hot—hot.
“That damned Joe business! I’m sick of it! Want no part of it! None, d’you hear? None!”
Alas, browbeating a wizard is easier said than done. Before I’d even finished, Zulkeh was spluttering his own outrage.
“Do I hear me aright? Is this midget jackanapes presuming to question me on the pursuit of my science?” Spittle, spittle. “Outrage! Impudence!”
Fortunately or otherwise, Greyboar interposed himself between us. It was so undignified. Greyboar’s version of “interposing himself” involves scruffs of the neck and large hands and sundry hoisting operations. I leave the coarse details to the imagination.
I tried to keep hollering even suspended in midair—so did the wizard—but Greyboar gave us both a little shake and that pretty much brought silence. Hard to holler when your teeth are clattering together.
“Shuddup,” he growled, after he set us down. “Both of you.”
To add insult to injury, Greyboar’s ensuing reproof was all aimed at me.
“And you’re supposed to be the brains of the outfit!” he snorted. “What in the world did you think Zulkeh was doing on this little expedition, numbskull? You think the mage came along because he gives two fiddles about a revolutionary agitator’s artist ex-boyfriend?”
“Preposterous!” spoke the mage. “Offensive—nay, insulting! Would any scholar allow himself to be diverted from his science for such a paltry and mundane purpose? Much less such a savant as myself?”
I goggled at him. Then, cursed myself.
What an idiot I was! Of course Zulkeh wouldn’t have come along on this insane expedition for the normal reasons that grip your workaday lunatic. Ever since he decided that the weird dream of a now-dead king of Goimr portended some awful and unknown disaster for civilization, he’s been a monomaniac about that damned quest of his. And since he was a maniac to begin with, you can just imagine what he was like once he got rolling.
That realization brought another. I swiveled and bestowed my glare on Magrit.
“And what about you?” I demanded. “What’s your angle on this thing?” Here, a big sneer. “And don’t bother telling me that you’re doing this as a favor to Gwendolyn. You wouldn’t cross the street to piss on a man dying of thirst unless he paid you in solid coin or—”
I stumbled to a halt. Magrit grinned. Wittgenstein spun around on her shoulder and mooned me. Disgusting, really, the way a salamander moons.
“What a dimwit,” snickered the vile little creature. “Good thing he’s built so low to the ground. Any taller, and the drop or two of blood which reaches his brain wouldn’t be enough to keep him from passing out.”
“You’re swapping favors with her,” I croaked. “You help Gwendolyn find her ex-squeeze and she owes you.”
Magrit kept grinning. Wittgenstein snickered again. I could feel the emptiness of eternal destiny yawning wider and wider beneath my feet.
“And you count favors like a miser counts pennies. She owes you, you’ll insist she pay you back. With a favor. And since Gwendolyn’s in no position to do anything for you herself—she’s on the run from every porker in Grotum—she’ll have to put the screws on her brother—”
Light-headed now with growing horror, I stared at Greyboar. Even since we’d started on this insane trek, Greyboar had spent most of his time with his sister. In a tête-à-tête, I believe the sophisticated crowd calls it. I hadn’t thought about it much, at the time. Sibling reconciliation, you know. Slobbering sentimental stuff; babble, babble, babble.
“Tell me it isn’t true,” I whispered.
Greyboar cleared his throat. “Ah. Well. Actually, Ignace . . .”
At that point, I believe I wailed. Not sure. My memory gets a little fuzzy. Sheer terror, I’m told, will do that to a man.
* * *
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