out.
When I opened the oak door and went inside where it was toasty warm from the baking ovens and smelled the way I imagine Paradise does, Goodwife Filster saw me and frowned (she never smiles) and said in a nasty voice, 'I'm not open yet, kender.'
I said, 'I thought you always opened about now.'
And she said, 'Get out of here, before I call the magistrate. Go on!'
About then I knew I wasn't going to get a sugar roll or even a cheese pastry, because Goodwife Filster is funny sometimes about people who aren't human like her, only she's not really funny as in funny ha-ha, she's funny as in funny uh-oh. Ark calls her the Minotaur, on account of she's strong and heavy and has such a terrible temper, but he says it's because she's as ugly as one, too.
I was leaving when I remembered what you had asked Ark to do, so I stopped and said, 'I have just one question to ask before I go.'
Goodwife Filster's face knotted up in a way that reminded me of the Wylmeens' dog, but she didn't say anything, so I quickly got out my papers and pen and got ready to write down her answer. When she looked like she was going to yell at me, I asked my question, which was, 'Do you think the gods did the right thing when they struck down Istar so that the balance of the world was preserved and freedom of thought, will, and action was granted to all once more?' I'm not sure I asked the question exactly as you wanted Ark to, and I borrowed some of your phrases from your letter to get it right, but I figured I was close enough and didn't think it would hurt.
On the other hand, maybe I didn't ask the question properly after all, since Goodwife Filster called me a name that meant that my real parents weren't married, which for all I know they weren't, but that wasn't any business of hers, and then she came at me with a bread knife, so I ran outside and down the street and was cold and hungry again before I knew it.
As I was standing outside her shop with my arms crossed under my robes because it was too cold to write this down yet, a fisherman came up to go into the bakery, and I said, 'It's not open yet,' because I'd never known Goodwife Filster to lie, even if she once said that all elves carried diseases and kidnapped children, which I don't think they do, or at least not all of them, or at least not the ones I know. Anyway, the fisherman said, 'Oh,' and left.
Then the Moviken kids came up, and I said, 'It's not open yet,' so they made faces at the bakery window and left. Then the spinster sisters Anwen and Naevistin Noff came up, and I said, 'It's not open yet,' and they groaned and left.
Then Goodwife Filster came out, wiping her hands on a towel, and she looked around and frowned at me, and I said, 'Are you open yet?'
And she made a snorting noise through her nose and said, 'When Istar rises, you damn kender,' then went back inside to bake some more.
Then Woose, the dwarf, came by and said, 'Morning, Walnut,' and I said, 'Morning, Woose. The bakery's not open yet.'
Woose peered at the bakery door and scratched his beard and said, 'That's funny. She's usually open at this hour,' and then he left. Woose isn't a human, but he has lots of steel coins from his mining business, and maybe Goodwife Filster forgives him for not being human on account of that.
Five more people came by whose names I've forgotten, and they left, and then Goodwife Filster came out and mumbled to herself and looked around and glared at me and said, 'What did you tell those last two people who were here just now?'
And I said, 'That you weren't open yet,' and she got a look on her face that reminded me of the Wylmeens' dog when it bit me on the finger, and she called me a name that meant I liked my mother more than normal people were meant to, which was silly because I don't even remember my mother, and Goodwife Filster grabbed me by my robes and brought me here to the magistrate to be hanged.
We had to wait until Jarvis, the magistrate, could get out of bed and find his spectacles, and he was as tall and thin as ever, and his black hair was all messed up from sleeping on it. He combed out his hair and big moustache, then looked at me and said, 'You again?' and looked sad, probably on account of this being the fifth time this year he would have to throw me in jail for being a public nuisance, which Jarvis says is really just a way to let everyone cool off and forget whatever I had done so they wouldn't tie me to a rock and drop me on a kelp farm, as Jarvis puts it, which sounds interesting but which I don't understand, since that would mean I was underwater.
'What now?' said Jarvis to Goodwife Filster, who then said a lot of things that weren't true, like that I was a plague carrier and a thief and a liar, and she was about to explain what she meant by my being responsible for the fall of Istar when Woose, the dwarf, ran into the magistrate's office and yelled, 'Fire! Fire at Goodwife Filster's!'
Then Woose saw Goodwife Filster and yelled, 'Gods, woman, your bakery is on fire!' and Goodwife Filster went all white and staggered like someone had hit her, then she ran out, and Woose ran out, and Jarvis ran out, but before Jarvis ran out he locked me in here and said he would be back.
So here I am with my facts machine and nothing to do. I should write down some notes on the economic situation in Newshore after Istar blew up and the crops drowned because of the ocean that used to be two days north of here but now comes up to the place where the Karkhovs once had a giant melon field and is where Ark and I fish for moonfins, but Jarvis is back now, and he's waiting for me to leave my cell after I finish this first.
'What are you writing?' he just now asked me, and now he's looking and…
Report Number Three
Same day, about an hour after noon
Hi, Astinus! I'm writing this from the rooftop of the Cats amp; Kitties, which is really just a tavern with a sign showing a woman's bosom with no dress on and isn't a pet shop at all, which was what I thought all the time I was growing up but Ark wouldn't take me there to find out. It's warmer now, and the sun is out and the sky is clear blue, and I can see lots of bird droppings on the roof from last year now that the snow is gone, and I might be sitting on some but I can't help it. Someone should clean this roof up, but then no one is supposed to be up here and I wouldn't be either except that Magistrate Jarvis said I was safer here than in jail, and he's gone to try to calm down the mob before I show up in town again.
So here I am, writing away on the roof and reading over some letters that Ark left in the satchel with the facts machine, and those letters are very interesting, though I can't imagine why Ark put them in here since I doubt very much he meant to send them to you. I think Widow Muffin wrote these letters to Ark, and she says a lot of things that make me think that maybe they aren't telling me the whole truth whenever Ark asks me to go into town to buy groceries when Widow Muffin comes over, and when I get back they tell me they were just talking. I was quite amazed at some of the things she said, and I don't think I will ever be able to look at either her or Ark again and not think about them playing 'warming the weasel,' which I should probably explain but am too embarrassed to do, and you wouldn't believe me anyway.
How I got up here on the roof is an interesting story, and I will write it down in case it is important. After I left off last time, Magistrate Jarvis took my satchel away while I was sending my report through the facts machine inside, and he took me out of jail, then gave me my satchel back and said that I could leave now, but I shouldn't try to talk to Good-wife Filster for a few years.
'What happened to her bakery?' I asked, and he said, 'Oh, the old windbag left a cloth sitting on an oven when she went outside, and the cloth caught fire, and that spread to the wall and ceiling. The place is pretty well ruined now. She's probably going south to Gwynned to stay with her brother until she gets things sorted out.'
I felt bad for her having to leave town, but I also felt bad for myself and everyone else, since she had the only good bakery. Jarvis went on about there being a lot of confusion as they were trying to put out the fire, but when Woose tried to get people organized, no one would listen to him, because he was rich or a dwarf or both, so the whole place burned up and took the tailor's shop with it. Jarvis said a lot of things about certain people that I should probably not put down here, because I think he was just angry, and I doubt he would really know if those people were as much in love with their barn animals as he implied they were.
Magistrate Jarvis stopped and rubbed his face and then looked at me and said, 'By the way, where did you get those?' and he pointed at my gray robes, so I said, 'Ark made me his official recorder this morning, and these are my official recorder's robes, and this is my official Palanthas paper, and this is my steel scribing pen, and this is
