Mister Smith’s head swiveled my way. “Is something amiss, Finder?” he said.
“Something cleared the street, Mister Smith,” I said. “Could it be you brought friends along?”
The Troll chuckled. “Only two,” he said. “Three is customary number for quests, even among the folk of your legends, is it not?”
I sighed. “I can’t go marching around the Heights with a Troll army at my heels. Why don’t you boys wait in my office while I visit the rich folks?”
“Agreed,” said Mister Smith. Then he burped out something short and loud in Troll. I didn’t need any magic translator to catch the bark of a sergeant behind the words.
One Army is rather like any other, I suppose.
A pair of Walking Stones trundled out of the alleys flanking us. “Mister Jones will stroll on ahead,” said Mister Smith. “Mister Chin will follow, to deter mischief.”
I shrugged. “Why not? We haven’t had a parade in this neighborhood since the Truce. Wish I had a tuba.”
Mister Smith laughed and did a little skip over a pile of horse flop. Doors and street level windows banged shut as we passed; higher up, wide-eyed faces shone and gaped.
We turned the corner at Holt; it, too, was empty, except for trash scampering by on the wind and crows picking at sweetmeats dropped by people in a sudden hurry.
If you look down Holt Street, over the factories and the smokestacks that line the Brown River, you can just see the top stories and slate rooftops of the manor houses that huddle together on the Heights. I wondered if this is what all of Rannit will look like, in a hundred years-deserted and dead during the day, while those withered, pale forms in the Heights sleep and dream thirsty dreams of sunset.
Mister Smith chuckled. “Penny for your thoughts,” said his translator, a hint of mischief in its tone.
I shook off the chill and picked up the pace.
It’s a tight fit, but three full-grown Trolls will fit in my office. I shoved all the furniture against the walls, opened my single barred window and told the Misters I’d be back before dark.
I didn’t even bother locking the door. I just waved to the suddenly nonchalant crowd of gawkers that were beginning to gather at the corner and stepped next door to Mama Hog’s card-and-potion shop.
I raised my hand to knock; she opened the door before my hand could fall. It’s her best trick, and it probably sets the rubes to oohing and aahing, but it saddens me to think she stands there all day peeking through tattered curtains just so she can pull off that one little shred of mystery.
Sunlight barged past her open door, fell on shelves crammed with dusty, foul-smelling glassware, a moldy stuffed owl on a wobbly three-legged table and, of course, Mama Hog herself. The sunlight stopped there, and I didn’t blame it. Mama Hog isn’t pretty like Trolls aren’t petite.
“Somebody sicced a Troll army on me, Mama,” I said. “I’m betting it was you.” No one but Mama knew my haunts that well.
Mama Hog grinned. “The Walking Stone found you, did he?”
“He did,” I said. “And his friends.” Mama motioned me inside. I went, and she shut the door.
“Smells like you’re brewing up something special, Mama,” I said, while she settled her stooped old bones into a chair and motioned for me to be seated as well. “Wouldn’t be Troll after-shave, would it?”
“Might be a drought to shut smart mouths,” said Mama, brushing a tangle of matted grey hair out of her face. “Then where would you be, boy?”
“Out of work.” I shoved the owl aside and picked up a worn deck of fortune cards. “What’s in my future, Mama?” I asked. “Trolls? Gold? Angry vampire hordes?”
The old lady snorted. “The half-dead are no joke, boy,” she said. Her eyes might be old, but they’re sharp as knifepoints, and they glittered. “No joke.”
I plopped down a card. “Neither are Trolls, Mama,” I said. “This bunch might wind up losing their tempers. Soon.”
“They might,” said Mama Hog, her voice softening, losing some of the old-hag put-on rasp. “Certainly so, if they find that which they seek.”
I threw down another card. “So you know?”
“I know.”
“They tell you?”
“They told me.”
I shuffled, cut, tossed down a card. “So who else knows? Eddie? The Watch? Who?”
Mama Hog smiled and scooped up the three cards I’d tossed out. “No one else knows,” she said. “I told them to trust you, and only you.”
“You told them that? Mama, why in the Nine High Heavens did you tell them that?”
“Your fate and their task meet now, Finder,” she said, her eyes bright and hard in the candlelight. “Meet, and mingle, and merge.”
“Drop the carnival soothsayer act, Mama,” I said. “It won’t wash with me.”
She slammed a card-one of my three cards-down on the table, face up in the flickering light.
I could just make out the worn, faded image of a man running away, a sack slung over his shoulder. Coins dribbled out of a tear in the sack.
“Greed,” said Mama Hog. “Flight. Abandonment. How much can they pay you for your soul, Finder?”
“I don’t know, Mama,” I said. “How much do you charge for fate?”
The second card went down. Crossed daggers glinted against a half-full moon. “Vengeance,” hissed Mama Hog. “How many lives will you waste to avenge a single death?”
“Six,” I snapped. “Maybe five, if it’s wash day.”
The third card hit the table. On it a skeletal hand beckoned, bony forefinger crooked in invitation.
“Death,” I said, standing. “Even I know that one. Death, the Final Dancer, the Last Guy You’ll Ever See and Boy Will You Hope There’s Been a Mistake.”
Mama Hog stood as well. “Jest if you will, Finder,” she said. “But take care. You stand at a crossroads. One way leads to the dark.”
“How much do I owe you, Mama?”
Mama Hog went stiff. All four feet of her puffed up and for a moment I honest to gods thought she was going to slap me. Then she let out her breath in a whoosh and broke into chuckles.
“No charge to neighbors,” she said. “Even disrespectful unbelieving smart-mouthed jackanapes who don’t know their friends from their boot-heels.”
“My friends don’t usually send feuding Trolls to my door, Mama.”
“This one did,” she replied. “Now get out. I’ve got an appointment.”
I stomped blinking into the street, telling myself that Mama’s cards were just so much tattered pasteboard and third-rate flummery.
The street stank, and in the absence of my Troll friends, it bustled. Wagons creaked, carriage drivers cussed, horses snorted, and everywhere people rushed back and forth, hurrying against the daylight so the night people could have the city by night.
A man passed in front of me, a sack slung over his shoulder, just like on Mama’s card.
I fell in step behind him all the way to Haverlock.
“And you have no appointment, sir?”
“No. None. Nada.”
The doorman shook his head and doddered away. He’d already asked twice about my appointment; I’d told him twice I had none. He’d checked with the other doorman anyway; both had retreated to the far side of the foyer and were consulting a leather-bound appointment book amid a blizzard of hushed words and furtive glances.
“Look, gents,” I said. “I really don’t have an appointment. I wouldn’t even know who to have an appointment with, unless you’ve got a man in charge of antiquities, decorations and ornamental taxidermy.”
The doormen exchanged suspicious glances. “Taxidermy? Are you a tradesman, sir?”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s right. I’m Wiggle, of Wiggle, Stiff and Waxed, Taxidermists. I’m here to polish the eyes of the Troll head His Honor Haverlock hung in the trophy room right after the War-”
