“Oh, well. I suppose it won’t be much of a problem, having a moron of an agent present. Although I would have thought someone in your occupation would need more brains than a rabbit.”
The odd thing was, I wasn’t even offended. The Abbess had this way of being offensive without—I don’t quite know how to put it—without there being anything personal in it. You got the impression that the fact she thought you were an imbecile wasn’t meant as a slur on you, it was just a fact that had to be taken into account.
Offended or not, I set her straight. “I’m as smart as a whip!” I exclaimed. “And I know snarls can’t be tamed. I should know! Didn’t I have to listen to an endless lecture by the wizard Zulkeh on the subject? Complete with footnotes and bibliographic citations! It’s just that—”
She rose to her feet with excitement. “You’ve met Zulkeh? When? Where? I’ve been trying to reach him for months!”
I shook my head, trying to clear it. The Abbess seemed to have this thing about going off on tangents. Greyboar answered her.
“We met him in Prygg. Last year. After—well, after concluding some business with him there, we traveled together with him for part of our way back to New Sfinctr. He and his apprentice, Shelyid. We parted company with them in Blain. They were headed south to the Mutt.”
“The Mutt?” She frowned, then sighed. “Of course, of course. On his way to see Uncle Manya, I suppose.”
She wasn’t dumb, that was sure. Tangent-brained, maybe, but not dumb.
“That’s right,” rumbled Greyboar.
“Oh, dear. Oh, dear. I suppose it’s too late now, then.”
“Too late for what?” I demanded.
She looked at me for a moment, as if deciding something.
“Well, I suppose there can’t be any harm in telling you. You must already know, anyway. You see, Zulkeh’s gotten himself mixed up in the Joe business.”
I knew it! I knew we should have passed up this job! Anything involves Gwendolyn, it’s going to get you into the Big Soup Pot, sure as sunrise.
“That’s why I was trying to reach him while he was still in Goimr,” continued the Abbess. “I sent him a letter, warning him to steer clear of the thing. I knew if he dug into it, Zulkeh would break open the Joe problem before the world was ready. He’s a terribly talented mage, you know, but without the sense of a chicken. Sorcerous bungling raised to the level of genius.”
She eased herself back into the chair, chuckling rather ruefully. “Not that he probably would have heeded me. He’s as stubborn as he is maladroit. But, it’s all a moot point anyway. The message apparently never reached him. It was returned to me.”
Here she frowned fiercely. “Impudent rascals! Look at this!” She dug into a desk drawer and drew forth a letter. The letter had been torn open, then resealed. A crude outline of a black hand had been drawn on the outside.
“My letter was opened by the authorities in Goimr. They sent it back to me, with an accompanying note saying that the wizard Zulkeh was under death sentence in Goimr—there’s some new regime there now, it seems—and warning me to avoid any further contact with him. Can you believe the cheek? Even threatened my life, the silly fools. Warned me of the `wrath of the Black Hand of Goimr.’ ”
“What’s the `Black Hand of Goimr’?” asked Angela, finally able to overcome her fear of the snarl.
Hildegard shrugged. “Who knows? Who cares? Just another ridiculous little death squad, I assume. Probably be sending assassins to the Abbey, I don’t doubt, like all the others.” She smiled, like a saint. “Hope so, really, it keeps the snarls from getting too hungry.”
As if to register her own agreement, the snarl lying on the rug cracked her eyes open a bit and yawned. A ghastly great red tongue licked a gruesome great pink maw. Horrible sight, really.
But I had other things to worry about than a mere snarl. “We don’t want no part of any Joe business!” I shrilled. “Got enough of that in Prygg! You didn’t say nothing about Joe business in your letter!”