Shadow Chaser

“Certainly is!” replied that know-it-all Kli-Kli. “Exam week at the university. The whole city’s making merry.”

“Very clever of us,” I said drearily. “I can’t stand crowds.”

“I thought you were a thief,” the goblin said.

“Well, so I am,” I replied, not quite understanding what he was getting at.

“I thought thieves loved a crowd.”

“And just why should I love a crowd?”

“I thought a crush was handier for stealing purses,” Kli-Kli said with a shrug.

“That’s a bit below my level,” I snorted. “I don’t deal in purses, my dear fool.”

“Right, you deal in Commissions,” the detestable goblin giggled. “But you know, Harold-Barold, I reckon that pilfering purses with coppers in them from the pockets of halfwits is better than the Commission you have now.”

“Go and annoy Hallas,” I snarled.

Kli-Kli had pricked me in a sore spot. Okay, there was no point in crying over spilt milk. I’d accepted the Commission—I must have been slightly insane at the time—and now there was no way back.

“Harold!” Lamplighter shouted, jerking me out of my moody reverie. “What’s got you so miserable?”

“That’s just his usual state of mind,” the king’s jester interrupted arrogantly. “Our Dancer in the Shadows has been far too glum and gloomy recently.”

“But then, someone else has been far too cheerful and chatty,” I muttered. “Make sure you don’t regret your blathering later.”

“Loudmouth’s the one who blathers,” Kli-Kli retorted. “All I ever do is speak the truth.”

“And you also quote the prophecies of goblin shamans who guzzled magic mushrooms,” I teased the jester. “All their prophecies about a Dancer in the Shadows aren’t worth a rotten sparrow’s egg.”

“Too late to get stubborn now. You accepted the title of Dancer in the Shadows, just like in the prophecy. The Bruk-Gruk has never lied!” Kli-Kli began testily, but then he realized I was only teasing him and lapsed into offended silence.

Kli-Kli’s weak point is his beloved goblin Book of Prophecies, which he knows from cover to cover. And now, you see, I wasn’t Harold the thief any longer, but a walking prophecy, who was destined to save the kingdom and the entire world. Yeah, sure. If I had my way, I’d rob it, not save it.

“Kli-Kli,” Arnkh put in, “why don’t you tell us if this little book of yours by the shaman Tru-Tru…”

“Tre-Tre, not Tru-Tru, you great ignoramus!” the goblin interrupted the bald warrior resentfully.

“Written by the shaman Tre-Tre,” Arnkh went on as if nothing had happened, but the goblin interrupted him again: “The great shaman Tre-Tre!”

“All right. Written by the great shaman Tre-Tre. So, is there anything in it apart from your beloved prophecies?”

“For example?” The native son of the Border Kingdom seemed to have succeeded in catching the goblin off balance.

“Well, for example, a cure for a gnome’s toothache?”

Hallas, who had drawn level with our little group again, heard the conversation and pricked up his ears, although he tried to pretend he wasn’t interested at all.

Kli-Kli spotted this and gave one of his now-watch-what-happens smiles—a clear sign that he was about to play one of his rotten tricks.

The jester paused so theatrically that Hallas started squirming in the saddle with impatience. When the gnome’s fury was just about to reach the boiling point, the goblin spoke.

“It does.”

“And what is it?” I asked, tugging desperately at my bridle and trying to steer Little Bee out of the space between Kli-Kli and Hallas.

As sure as eggs were eggs, the goblin had some rotten trick in mind, and I had no wish to be caught in the line of any heavy objects when the bearded gnome decided to spill the royal jester’s blood

“Oh!” Kli-Kli declared in a mysterious voice. “It’s a very effective remedy. In principle it could have been applied at the very beginning of Hallas’s ailment, and the tooth would have stopped hurting immediately. I swear by the great shaman Tre-Tre’s hat, Harold, it’s the truth.”

“Then why didn’t you say anything?” the gnome roared, setting half the street fluttering in alarm.

Uncle turned round and waved his fist at us, then pointed in Alistan’s direction and ran the edge of his hand across his throat.

“Cut the clowning, Kli-Kli,” Marmot said good-naturedly. “People are looking.”

“All right, not another word,” the goblin promised solemnly, gesturing as if he were locking his mouth shut.

“What d’you mean, not another word?” the gnome asked indignantly. “Deler, tell that green-skinned lout that if he doesn’t give me the remedy, I won’t answer for myself!”

Kli-Kli gazed at the gnome with his blue eyes and said with a very doubtful air, “I’m not so sure you’ll like the goblin remedy for a toothache, Hallas.”

“Can’t you just tell me, Kli-Kli?”

“You won’t use the method anyway,” said Kli-Kli. “And I’ll simply have revealed a goblin secret for nothing.”

“I promise that I will use your method this very moment!” said the gnome, struggling desperately to hold himself back from wringing the goblin’s neck.

A broad smile split Kli-Kli’s green face from ear to ear, making him look exactly like a wickedly contented frog.

I worked away even more desperately with my bridle, holding Little Bee back until I was beside Lamplighter, and the goblin and the gnome were ahead of me. My brilliant maneuver did not go unnoticed by Marmot, Deler, and Arnkh, who repeated it precisely. Hallas and Kli-Kli were left on their own: None of us wanted to be caught between the hammer and the anvil.

“Remember, you promised to use the goblin method,” the prankster reminded the sick man. “Well then, in order to cure a sick tooth, you have to take a glass of ass’s urine and hold it in your mouth for an hour, then spit it out over your left shoulder, preferably into your best friend’s right eye. Your toothache will disappear instantly!”

Hallas gave the goblin a baleful glance, spat juicily on the ground under the hooves of his horse, and urged it on. I think Kli-Kli was rather upset. Like everyone else, he’d been expecting thunder and lightning.

“Tell me, friend Kli-Kli,” I asked the downhearted goblin. “Have you ever tried that remedy yourself?”

The jester looked at me as if I were demented: “Do I look like an idiot, thief?”

I just knew he was going to say something like that.

*   *   *

“Behold and tremble, Harold,” said Honeycomb.

“I am trembling,” I said, with my eyes glued to the Fountain of the Kings.

And what a sight it was! I’d heard a lot about this fountain before, but this was the first time I’d ever set eyes on it.

The huge column of water fifty yards high was regarded as one of the sights of Ranneng. The fountain took up the whole square; its roaring jets of water soared way up into the sky, and then fell back down to earth, shattering into a watery haze that shrouded the entire area. The droplets of water and the rays of the sun merged in a passionate embrace to create a rainbow bridge that sliced the sky above the square into two halves and came diving back down into the fountain.

Those in the know said that when the dwarf master craftsmen created this miracle they had a little help from the Order. It takes magic to produce a rainbow that appears out of the spray every day of the week in any weather. It looked as if I could reach out my hand to touch the seven-colored miracle and feel all the airy fragility of this bridge in the sky.

“Magnificent.” Arnkh sighed contentedly, catching the fresh spray on his face.

Late June and the first half of July had been so hot that even a hardened warrior like Arnkh had taken off his beloved chain mail a couple of times during our journey. And for someone from the Border Kingdom who has been