Shadows of the Scriptures

SEVEN: Judgment Rope

"Master. I've been looking for you. Whatever are you doing here?"

"Hiding," said Master Harl, sitting on his pine-lacquered trunk and making patterns on the earth with his quarterstaff. Even with the sight of an old bat, his artwork was tidy, organized.

When he didn't expand on his answer, Addie said "From?" with the question mark clear in her articulation of the word.

Master Harl looked up then. His glazed-over eyes did not pierce her as they usually did. Instead they swept over to behind her shoulders somewhere. From round they went oval, and from oval to a slit. He dropped the quarterstaff.

"Shit. From him."

Addie whirled even as a chirring met her ears.

Puhezer Gryphik was ambling towards them on lightweight feet, his baggy silk shirt clipped at the wrists matching his manner. A revolving tiara of dragoses fizzed around his head. He seemed to talking to himself, but then she realized it was him that the chirring came from, not a songbird.

Could the Relic's portend have meant this man?

The minstrel feigned astonishment as he bowed theatrically before them. Up close, the bridge of his nose looked a bit crooked, and the age in the pits of his narrow face more pronounced. He carried the awkward smell of pleasantries exchanged between business acquaintances who happened also to be friends, and the sweet smell of lavender-sandalwood incense withal. The dragoses zipped off.

"I was hoping to corner you one at a time, but lo! The Holder does make achieving that which you desire from your religious roots reasonably easy."

"I thought you were heathen," said Addie.

"And for a long time I thought shit was licorice. Those people would have devoured me alive had I not said what I did say."

"What do you want?"

"Why, nothing at all. I just thought, you know, us mages should stick together."

"We're no mages," Addie denied-

-at the same time as Master Harl said: "Are - you - completely - moronic?"

He looked like he was about to explode into a hundred flaming arrows, and all of those arrows would be directed at the newcomer.

"You insult me, old friend," said Gryphik. "I am half parts genius, quarter parts insane . . . which leaves room for only quarter of a moron in me."

"You know of each other?" Addie asked, frowning.

"Know of?" Gryphik scoffed. "I know him like I do the back of my hand - not much of use, me being no warrior. How do you think I recognized his wrinkled ass? And he knows me too, mayhaps better than he does his genitals."

Addie blinked at him. Then at Master Harl, to see if he would allow this.

"That was a masturbation joke," Gryphik explained.

"That will be enough, Zer, thank you!"

"Just like the old days." Gryphik sighed. "So stoic. The years haven't changed a hair on this man's chest. Well, they're grey now, but you catch the sentiment."

"What do you want?" inquired Master Harl, vexed more than Addie had even seen him. Which she had thought was impossible, since he almost always looked vexed.

"Nothing. I believe I answered that already."

"Then why are you here?"

"Because I happened to be in Dassan at the worst possible time. And because it's been a while since I met someone of our ilk who is not dead or converted."