Dirty Work, Part 2 of 9

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DIRTY WORK

2.

The cabin was low-ceilinged, and Yerzle could not stand fully upright. He realized that there had to be another deck below this one in the forward part of the ship, since the slave pen in the aft portion was high enough that none of them had been able to reach that hatch opening. It was slightly stuffy, and the air held the scents of exotic spices and incense. His nose twitched, and he fought back a sneeze. He stepped off the steep stairway to the main deck -- almost a ladder -- and glanced about the cabin. It was not nearly as dark as he’d thought it would be, and his eyes quickly adjusted. Standard portholes let in light, and more came in through cracks in the hull that had developed in their final rush for shore. The large space was divided into nooks and cubbies instead of separate cabins, each filled with cushions and blankets, no doubt plunder of the slavers. He could not see Portia in any of the nooks, so he made his way about the space as quietly as he could. He found her in a midship nook aft of the hatch, with a large porthole and several large pillows. She lay with her face to the bulkhead and her back to him, cocooned in a blue and red quilt with only her white hair visible.

Even from that position, Yerzle though she looked beaten and exhausted, and he hesitated before speaking. “Portia?” he asked softly. She did not answer. He called her name again, then stepped haltingly towards her sleeping place, although he did not enter it or touch her bedclothes. Still, she did not respond, and he decided to return abovedeck. As he turned to climb the stairs back, he heard the cushions rustle.

“How’s the shuffleboard tournament going?” Portia’s voice was thin and dry. She rolled over just enough so that she could see Yerzle without turning fully away from the bulkhead. The sun through the porthole glinted in her green eyes. “I told Stillwell I’d join, but I admit I don’t feel up to it right now.”

“I just got here,” he replied, stepping over to her bed. “They got so wrapped up in organizing the entertainment that they forgot to look for me.”

“It’s scheduled as a double-elimination, round-robin event,” Portia said with a faint smile. “The brackets have to be seeded carefully.” She sniffed, then wrinkled her nose in distaste.

“Also, you smell like kelp.”

Yerzle chuckled. “You can smell that, under all this patchouli? Well, that’s what broke my fall. I had to untangle myself once I woke up, and I’ve got sand in places I didn’t know sand could get. I’ll itch for days.”

He squatted at the entrance to her nook, resting his elbows on his knees. “Dozer told me you were resting, but I thought I’d check on you, anyway.”

She turned her face back to the bulkhead. “I saw you fall overboard when we first struck the beach,” she said, so softly that he could barely make out her words. “I saw you fall, but couldn’t do anything about it. All my power, all that power I was channeling, I could only use it to keep pushing the ship forward, not to save you. Not to do anything but go. I didn’t know whether you’d fallen into the sea, or onto jagged rocks, or even how far up in the air we were. Then we hit the boulders.” She sighed raggedly, like the final puff of a worn out bellows. “All that power, and I couldn’t do anything....

“Then it was all gone."

“Hey, I’m here, you’re here, everyone’s here, and there’s a shuffleboard tournament ready to start! If we get out of this only with Stillwell’s broken leg and your exhaustion, that’s a success in my book. It beats the slave pens for sure, don’t you think?”

“Exhaustion,” she murmured, and rolled back over and sat up a little, keeping the quilt wrapped around her. The tip of her black-and-white striped tail poked out from the bottom end. “Right.... I’ve felt better, for sure, and considering I’ve been dead, that’s saying something."

“You didn’t die,” Yerzle said with a nervous smile. “It was close, sure, but--”

“You weren’t there,” she said flatly. “You couldn’t possibly know.”

He didn’t try to argue the point, and sat down on the edge of the pillows. “I was worried for you. I was afraid that being a Duct would take too much out of you."

“You have no idea,” she said wearily, and pushed herself up into a half-sitting position against the bulkhead with slow, careful movements. Now that he was closer, and she was in more of the light, Yerzle could see Portia’s drawn and haggard face, her sunken and bloodshot eyes, he dry, cracked nose, and the brittle exaggeration of her movements. The white fur of her face and muzzle seemed to have a yellowish tinge, like old bones, but he couldn’t tell if that was real, or only a trick of the light. “Being a Duct siphoned nearly everything out of me,” she said. “My strength, my spirit, my will. I feel like an empty husk of myself. I’d hoped that the ten years I lost would be off the end of my life, not taken immediately.”

“Is that what’s happened?” Yerzle’s concern for his friend grew.

“I’m not sure. The lore regarding Ducts is spotty and incomplete. It’s a last-ditch maneuver, not something wizards take on readily, and the effects aren’t well understood. But, as you said, it beats the slave pens.”

They sat quietly for a while, watching dust motes in the sunbeam that shone through the porthole. “I’m glad you’re all right,” Portia said finally.

“We’re all all right,” Yerzle said. “Even you, you’ll see.” He gestured up at the ceiling. “Do you want to go topside? Mister Pauly should be done setting up the buffet. You could get the last of the day’s sun in one of the lounges, as well.”

“That ridiculous costume disappeared when the Duct shut off,” Portia said, then ran her fingers through her hair. “It left my hair short, though.” Yerzle could see that her hair did end just before her shoulders, unlike the ponytail she normally wore. “I couldn’t find my other clothes, either.”

“Disappeared, you say?”

“I see that look on your face!” Portia said, sounding more like her normal, forceful, self. “You can wipe it right off! The punks who fished us out of the ocean have plenty of gear and equipment, so I’m sure there’s something around that’ll fit me. But you’re going back up top before I go looking!”

Yerzle smiled as he climbed the stairs to rejoin the others. Everything was sorting itself out.

Dirty Work, Part 1 of 9

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DIRTY WORK

1.

The waves crashed upon a smooth, gently-sloping beach. The mid-afternoon sun hung in a cloudless sky, the summer heat tempered by a cool breeze that blew in from the sea. Just beyond the reach of the breakers, a pair of green-backed peckers darted to and fro, poking their narrow snouts into the wet sand, searching for edible bits of sea life. Further up, the beach was littered with the debris of high tide: mats of seaweed, driftwood, dead fish, the detritus of the shipping lanes. Beyond that, the wreck of a two-masted dhow rested among a cluster of boulders, a wide furrow in the sand leading from the high-tide line to the broken stern.

Nothing moved around the wreck but another pair of peckers, which froze when an unnatural groan issued from a nearby pile of kelp, thongweed, and bladderwrack. The pile stirred, groaned again, then begain to rise. The fox tod buried beneath the seaweed climbed to his hands and knees, then cast off the leafy blanket and stood. Brushing sand out of his russet fur, he surveyed the beach and the wreck.

“Sheesh.” He ran a hand through his prominent forelock, and sand trickled onto his snout. He began searching the nearby piles, similar to the one he’d been covered by, looking for his companions. They’d all been held captive aboard the dhow after their own vessel had sunk, but had managed to free themselves and overpower their captors, although they’d caused significant damage to the ship in the process.

Portia caused it, he reminded himself. The rest of us didn’t do anything at all, stuck down in the slave hold. He would not panic yet, not after what they’d all endured, but his search carried an urgency that an everyday beachcomber’s could never have. “Hello!” he called out. “Dozer? Stillwell? Are you there? Portia? Sashi? Anybody?”

A head appeared above the dhow’s ruined stern, the broad bovine face and horns of Vacamar, their former employer and then their fellow captive aboard the ship, when it had been crewed by slavers. “Ahoy, Mister Yerzle!” the sailor called out. “Up here!”

“Vacamar! Have you seen anyone else?”

“There’s a rope ladder on the port side,” the former captain said. “Get yourself up here!”

The bull had not answered Yerzle’s questions, but he followed the directions and hauled himself up the lines. As he topped the gunnel, he noted with some exasperation that Vacamar reclined in a chaise lounge, his sleeves and trouser legs rolled up, with several other empty lounge chairs beside him on the deck. A brightly-colored pavilion shaded him from the sun, and a small table crowded with several large bottles stood amidst the other furniture. “Catching some sun, are you?” he asked.

“I was,” Vacamar said, a bottle in his hand. “It got pretty hot, though, so I moved into the shade. There’s not much else to do, right now. Mister Pauly is in the galley, getting the rest of the buffet prepared.”

“Buffet?”

Vacamar nodded and took a pull from his bottle. “Those slavers had all sort of loot stored aboard this tub. Food, liquor, clothing, weapons, you name it! The salvage on this will set me up fine!” He took another drink.

“What about the others?” Yerzle asked, and Vacamar gestured towards the bow with his bottle, indicating three of his friends clustered around the stump of the foremast, then took another swig.

“Yerzle!” Stillwell called out to him as he approached the group. His elephant bulk was sunk deep into a deck hammock. “You made it!”

“To find the rest of you drinking rum and sunbathing while I was passed out on the beach,” Yerzle grumbled. “Was I the only one who fell overboard when we ran aground?”

“Sashi pitched over the bow just afore we hit the rocks,” Dozer said, turning from where he and the rat were examining something upon the deck. “Me and Vacamar had to haul him aboard, so that we could all pull Stillwell up.”

Yerzle turned to Stillwell. “Why? What happened to you?”

“He rolled forward into the fo’c’sle when we ran aground,” Sashi explained, his long naked rat’s tail lashing back and forth. “That’s where we found the hatch to the larder, and the shuffleboard supplies.” Looking over Sashi’s shoulder, Yerzle could see the lines of a shuffleboard court marked out upon the deck, and tangs and biscuits scattered about.

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Yerzle grimaced. “So you decided to play shuffleboard instead of looking for me? Nice to know I inspire such loyalty. So, where’s Portia?”

“She’s resting below,” Stillwell said. “We didn’t forget about you, we just had bigger problems. First, they had to pull me out of the fo’c’sle compartment.”

“Then the shuffleboard?”

“No,” said Dozer. “Then, we had to set the big lug up in the hammock, since he busted his leg in the fall.”

“Really?” Yerzle asked. He belatedly noticed that the bull elephant’s right leg was propped up on large pillows and splinted with a shuffleboard tang. “How’s it feel?”

Stillwell raised a large golden goblet with a small paper umbrella poking out of the top. “The mai tais help,” he said. “I can’t walk, though. That’s not because of the mai tais,” he added hastily.

“It doesn’t appear to be a serious break,” Sashi said. “On the other hand, he’s got a lot of meat between the skin and the bone, so I can’t be entirely sure.”

“I get to use a tang as a crutch!” Stillwell called out. “Also, I’m running low on crushed ice!”

“Mister Pauly is steward fer now,” Dozer reminded Stillwell as he practiced his launching technique on the court. “I reckon you can bring that up when he comes by next.”

“So you were delayed a bit,” Yerzle said, exasperated. “But you still didn’t come looking for me.”

“Well,” Stillwell said, “after hauling all the equipment out, it seemed like a waste to not make better use of it, so we were organizing a shuffleboard tournament. Then, you showed up. So, problem solved, right?”

These were the sorts of conversations that always made Yerzle’s blood pressure rise. “You got somethin in yer eye?” Dozer asked, scratching his chin. “It’s started makin a funny little twitch.”

Yerzle sighed and silently counted to ten. “Never mind,” he said. “I want to talk with Portia.”

“She’s restin,” Dozer said. “Gettin us ashore took a lot out of her. You might want to let her be, for now.”

“I’ll just look in. If she’s sleeping I’ll be right back.”

“We put her in a nook below the forward hatch,” Sashi told him, pointing it out just behind Stillwell’s hammock. “The fore is separated from the aft slave pen.”

“Thanks.” Yerzle opened the hatch and descended into the gloom of the dhow’s lower deck.

Exit Interview, Part 3 of 3

EXIT INTERVIEW

3.


Two hours later, Yerzle approached a stout door in a nondescript, although extensive, building within the north-western portion of the Royal Lands. He had neglected to get directions to Bureau 13 from the clerk in Annex Three, and by the time he realized his mistake, after scaling the collapsed stairwell and wading through the apple cores, fish carcasses, and corn cobs again, he’d been reluctant to return and ask. The first functionary he’d come across in Annex One first directed him to Annex Three, and then to the First Sergeant of the Hunt, so after that he had refrained from asking any more questions.

Exiting the Annexes he had bumped into one of the lake monster keepers and that had gone as well as expected, but he managed to ditch his pursuer by running through the carnivorous garden, and was pretty sure his fur would grow back in those patches, in any event. Still, he figured he had to be more careful. “I don’t want to screw anything up,” he told himself. Soon after that, he saw one of the Royal Lands’ maintenance workers. Knowing that the janitors and physical plant workers knew every square inch of the place, he approached the older man. “Excuse me,” he said, “where is Bureau 13?”

“What’s that?” the skunk in coveralls asked. “You’re looking for a blue tureen? What kind of assignment is that for a Huntsman?”

“No, I need to get to Bureau 13!”

The maintenance man scratched his chin in confusion. “You feed the ghetto beauty queen?”

“No!” Yerzle shouted. “Bureau 13! Where is it?”

“Bureau 13?” the skunk asked. “Why would you want to go there?”

“I have orders,” Yerzle said. “It’s my new assignment.”

“You crave porridge?” The old man frowned at him. “That don’t make no sense.”

A grinding, choked snarl was Yezle’s only response, and he waved his order packet in the janitor’s face, an order packet which he had, in his frustration, crumpled in his clenched fist. “Ah,” the old man said, “you have orders. Why didn’t you say so?”

That was how Yerzle now found himself before this door, built of ironwood and further bound in iron, “B13” burned into the surface in hand-high letters. It opened out from the room in which he stood, with a simple latch. Yerzle stood before it for a long moment, not daring to reach for the handle. This was his last chance, his final opportunity to be a real member of the King’s Huntsmen, to live up to his family’s legacy. Taking a final deep breath, he gripped the door latch, pushed it open, and strode through.

He found himself out upon the street.

He spun around, only to watch the door close with a final click. “Hey!” he shouted. There was no latch on this side of the door. For a moment, he stood staring, stunned, at the closed door. What had happened? Where was Bureau 13?

He turned back around, facing the street. No one seemed to notice him; the commercial life of Pervis Gap, capital city of The Greensward, continued on. Across the street was the Harp & Bass, a pub that Yerzle had spent many an evening in over the past eighteen months with his Huntsmen comrades. He’d often wondered about this blank door. Now he knew what it was.

That still didn’t explain what was going on, though. He looked at the crumpled order packet that he still held. The seal had been broken, and the top fold was separated from the bottom. Reluctantly, the dread reality of the situation creeping upon him, Yerzle opened his orders and read them.

Huntsman Yerzle Morosta, the orders read. Greetings from his most Royal Majesty, King Leonest VI. It is our duty to ensure that we retain servitors capable of managing and maintaining all Royal Lands within our domain to the highest quality. According to the most recent metrics recorded and submitted by your supervisor, you have not met the minimum thresholds to achieve those standards. Therefore, it is our duty to inform you that your services are no longer required by Our Huntsmen. At this, Yerzle gasped audibly.

There is no need to gasp, the orders continued, since everything is clearly documented in your personnel file. Four Action Notices in eighteen months? Really? And that poor lake monster! Yerzle frowned. “He didn’t need to editorialize so much,” he mumbled.

Based upon these performance reports, your employment with Our Huntsmen is hereby terminated. We wish you success in your subsequent employment opportunities. The king’s signature, applied by stamp, was smeared since the clerk in Annex Three had failed to blot it properly.

“‘No longer required’?” Yerzle muttered. “Fired?” He felt three generations of King’s Huntsmen within his family reading his termination notice over his shoulder. He imagined that they were not pleased.

What to do now? The salary of an entry-level Huntsman had not been enough to get his own place, so Yerzle would eventually be forced to reveal this to his parents. On the other hand, if he could find new employment before returning home, then perhaps the consequences of his termination would be more manageable.

“But what?” he asked himself aloud, and began to walk down the street. “What employment could a young man moderately trained in the combat arts, tracking, and decision-making find in this economy?”

Before he could formulate a suitable answer for himself, he was barged in the back by a passer-by, causing him to stumble to the street. “Outta the way, chump!” a deep voice behind him called out.

“Hey!” Yerzle shouted as he climbed to his feet. “What do you think you’re doing?” His apparent assailant was a large fellow, to match his voice, with a high-peaked hat and flowing crimson cape that reached nearly to the ground.

“Walking down the street, chump,” the other man said, continuing on his way.

“And who are you, that you can just push people out of the way? You can’t do that to a King’s Huntsman!”

The man stopped and turned, and Yerzle now faced a tiger in impressive scale armor, the tabard covering his mail emblazoned with a crossed shovel and sword, topped by a small strongbox. He wore a broadsword with an elaborate pommel at his left hip, and a knife with a well-worn handle tucked into his belt. The tiger eyed him critically, then pushed his hat back on his head. “You wear the livery,” he said with a grin, “but if you’re a Huntsman, what are you doing standing outside the door to Bureau 13? How many Action Notices did you get? Four? It usually takes at least four.”

“Never mind that!” Yerzle said with a growl, standing on his tiptoes in a failed attempt to look the tiger straight in the eyes. “Where do you get off knocking people down?”

The tiger seemed more amused than threatened. “Ease up, chump,” he said. “I have places to go, and people to see. While you, on the other hand, are obviously unemployed and will soon be lying in the gutter, anyway. I was just giving you a head-start.”

“Who’re you calling a chump, chump?” Yerzle took a step back. “You still don’t have any right--”

“My money gives me the right,” the tiger said, cutting Yerzle off. “The money that just bought me my new peerage. You, chump, are speaking to the Seigneur Hiram Shellain, Gentleman Adventurer!”

“‘Gentleman Adventurer,’” Yerzle asked, adding the capital letters as obviously intended by the Seigneur’s pronunciation. “What does that mean?”

“It means that I am a gentleman, who has adventures! Through the fruits of which I am able to maintain my lifestyle as a gentleman to adventure, instead of laboring in the lake monster pens, like a chump such as yourself!”

Yerzle cringed at the mention of the lake monster. He was sure there’d been no permanent physical or psychological harm done to the beast. Pretty sure, anyway. Still, he was beginning to understand the Seigneur. “You’re a tomb-robber,” he said.

“Look, kid,” the Seigneur said. He leaned in and wrapped a gauntleted arm around Yerzle’s shoulder. The scale armor was cold and heavy against the back of his neck. “We prefer to call it the treasure acquisition industry, and it can be very lucrative. Don’t knock it.” He gave Yerzle a comradely slap upon the back, which caused the fox to stumble forward, then resumed his travels. “I’ve got to get to my accountant’s office,” he called over his shoulder. “Think about what I told you!”

Yerzle stood in the street and watched the mercenary until he turned a corner and disappeared from view. Then he stood some more, thinking about the conversation, and what the Seigneur’s parting words. An idea formed, vague and nebulous at first, then gradually gaining focus and clarity. Yes, he thought. This would work.

“I’ve got to get home and tell everyone!” he said to himself as he ran down the street. “I’m going to be an accountant!”

Exit Interview, Part 2 of 3

EXIT INTERVIEW

2.

“Welcome to Annex Three!” a young beaver in the livery of the King’s Hunstmen told Yerzle as he entered the foyer. “How may I be of service to you?” Yerzle brushed the last of the cobwebs from behind his left ear and limped over to the beaver’s desk.

“That’s a nasty limp you’ve got there,” the clerk said.

“You need to have your stairs looked at,” Yerzle said. “They collapsed as soon as I stepped on them. That’s how I twisted my ankle.”

“That’s not a bug, sir, that’s a feature. The stairs collapse into a slide in order to provide efficient transport to these lower levels.”

“So, Annexes One and Two are above you? The floor above this one was waist-deep in apple cores, fish carcasses, and corn cobs. And the floor beneath it all was covered in honey or something. It was sticky.”

“Knowing Annex Two, it was ‘or something.’ And I wondered what that smell was! Those jokers upstairs! You gotta love ‘em!”

“The entrance to this level was a secret door!”

“We are Annex Three, after all.”

Yerzle began to respond, then thought better of it. He decided to approach from a different angle. “And just what is that?” he asked. “I’d never heard of you, before today.”

The beaver winked and laid a finger aside his snout. “Ah, sir, that’s the whole purpose of Annex Three!”

Yerzle waited for the clerk to continue, but he remained silent, his hands folded primly atop his desk and a broad grin across his face. The fox decided he didn’t really care what Annex Three was for, as long as it got him to his new post. “I’ve been assigned to Bureau 13, and I was told to first report here, after which you would tell me where to go.”

“Bureau 13?” the clerk asked brightly. “Ah, of course. You have a goldenrod sheet?” Yerzle handed the paper the First Sergeant had given to him over to the beaver, who began reading it.

“It didn’t make much sense to me,” Yerzle said.

“Well, it wouldn’t, to you.”

Yerzle waited as the beaver read the sheet, thoughtfully tapping his prominent incisors and muttering to himself. Finally, the clerk folded the goldenrod sheet and placed it to one side. He drew a clean sheet of high-quality vellum from one drawer of his desk and an inkwell and quill pen from another. Dipping the pen into the ink, he wrote furiously upon the vellum for a few moments, then blotted the still-wet ink with his shirt sleeve. Returning the inkwell and pen to their drawer, he then drew out two stamps. He used one upon the vellum, which he then folded into thirds. The second was a wax stamp, which he used to seal the folded vellum.

“These are your new orders,” he said, handing the vellum to Yerzle. “Don’t open them until you actually enter Bureau 13. That’s very important; if you open them before your reach the Bureau, it will threaten the status of your new assignment.”

Yerzle eagerly accepted the letter. “I won’t even think of opening them until I get there!” he said excitedly. “I need to be at the top of my game to impress my new officers! Thanks!”

“Of course you do,” the clerk said as Yerzle dashed from the office, his limp apparently forgotten. “Good luck with that.”