Forged in Fire

Chapter 6

Ector Cobbler was asleep, curled up under a fishing boat that had been pulled up on the beach and flipped over to have its hull scraped. If he hadn’t been snoring the police wouldn’t have found him at all. He was snoring, and they rolled the boat from over him and booted him in the ribs a few times to wake him. They half dragged, half carried him to the square, hauled him into the town hall, and dumped him on the floor of the mayor’s office.

Ector looked up and blinked and rubbed his eyes. The room was lit by a few lamps. He was surrounded by the half-dozen policemen who had dragged him in. The police chief – a greenie in an orange tunic with brass buttons and blue piping – stood next to the mayor, who was seated behind his solid mahogany desk.

“Quam, it’s bright in here,” Ector mumbled. “Don’t you people know it’s midnight?”

“Kick him,” the chief ordered. One of the policemen gave Ector a halfhearted kick in the hip.

“Harder,” the mayor ordered. A police sergeant gave Ector a solid thump in the kidney. Ector groaned, rolled onto his side, and curled up. “Pull him back upright. Punch him if he doesn’t answer, or if he’s insolent,” the mayor commanded. They jerked Ector up onto his feet, holding him upright by his arms.

“Do you know who I am?” the mayor demanded.

“Mayor Ednis,” Ector slurred. “I see you around sometimes. On days you actually work.” The mayor nodded at the sergeant, who slammed a fist into Ector’s gut, doubling him over.

“You were seen in the company of a woman today. Tall, brown, comely. There was a boy with her. What did she want?”

“She wanted to bed me, but I turned her down. I’m a pious man, I am. Quam’s truth.”

Mayor Ednis nodded to the sergeant again, and the sergeant punched Ector in the gut again, then punched him in the kidney when he doubled over. The other policemen jerked Ector upright just as he vomited, so the puke projected and splashed on the mayor’s desk.

“Quamdammit!” the mayor roared. “I’ll have you flayed and dumped in a barrel of seawater, you drunken piece of garbage! Now answer my question: What did that woman want?”

Ector groaned and let a little more vomit dribble out and down his shirt before answering.

“She wanted to hire some killers to help her track down some goblins. I told her there were plenty of deserters living up Straw Hut Creek. Same as I told the provost investigator.”

The mayor nodded. “That’s more like it. Anything else?”

“That’s all, I swear,” Ector groaned again.

“Maybe you’ll remember more after a night in jail, eh? Sergeant, haul him off. No, wait. Make him clean off my desk first. With his own shirt.”

“You heard him,” the sergeant growled. “Make it quick and make it good, Cobbler, or you’ll get another thumping.”

Ector pulled his shirt over his head and stepped toward the desk to clean up his mess.

“Stop!” the mayor ordered.

“Do you want me to clean up or not?”

“What’s that around your neck?”

“Huh? Oh, just a little pebble in a pouch.”

“A pebble, eh?” Mayor Ednis reached across and grasped the amulet bag and tore it off Ector’s neck. He gingerly extracted the pebble and peered at it. It was creamy, translucent, pale gold in color. “Just a pebble, eh? A piece of quartz you got cut and polished at the jeweler’s, eh? Tell me, Ector, what is a drunken cobbler doing with a gemstone that must be worth five hundred silver suns?”

“I found it on the beach.”

“Like hell you found it on the beach.”

“Honest. Quam’s truth.”

“You stole it is more like the truth, but you’re too drunk to question. Quam’s justice might loosen your tongue, though. A couple of days in the stocks to sober you up should do the trick. Sergeant, get this stinking pile of filth out of here.”

The sergeant and his men hauled Ector away, leaving Mayor Ednis and his police chief alone in the office.

“Strange goings-on today,” the chief commented.

“I don’t like strange,” Ednis said. “Uppity women, provost investigators, now this curious little thing…” He looked closely at the little cut stone in his hand, then closed his fingers over it for half a minute. When he uncurled his fingers, the stone was glowing softly.

“By Quam,” the police chief breathed.

“By Quam indeed. Strange goings on, but one thing we know for sure is that our little friend Ector Cobbler did not find this on a beach somewhere.”

this“Could that woman have given it to him?” the chief asked.

“Maybe. But where would she have gotten it?”

“What about that investigator?”

“Possible. But why?”

“I don’t know,” the chief said.

Ednis looked down at the man. He was loyal and brutal, both good traits in a police chief, but he wasn’t very clever.

“Well then find out. Send a clever man – out of uniform, of course – to Straw Hut to keep a watch out for that investigator. Tell him to keep out of sight, to listen and watch, but not to act. Find out what this Tennea is up to. I don’t believe this business about hunting down a couple of deserters. Why would anyone care enough to follow them all the way down here? We’re at the end of the Quamforsaken world. I don’t care how many people these deserters murdered, it doesn’t make sense. The woman had a handwritten note from the emperor himself, for Quamsake. Why would old Willard give a copper half-penny for a couple of murderers?”

“I don’t know,” the policeman said.

“Well, not knowing makes me nervous. So, get a man moving before daybreak, understood? And remember, a clever man.”

“Yes, Mayor.”

“One more thing. I want you and your men to keep a sharp eye out for that Rancher woman. Or her son. They’re both to be arrested if they come anywhere close to town. I don’t think they come often, but sooner or later they’ll have to come for supplies. If the boy comes by himself, I want him in jail. If the woman comes, I want her brought to me. At my villa. Immediately. Understood?”

“Yes, Mayor,” the chief nodded dutifully.

“Good. Go get it done.”

The chief gave a sloppy salute and left. Mayor Ednis held the pebble in his hand and stared at it. His other hand strayed to touch the cheek where Dahlia had smacked him this morning. He should have slapped her back, but she had caught him off guard and he had lost his balance. Next time would be different, though. Next time he would slap her. He would slap her again and again, until she would be happy to feel his caresses instead. It took some women awhile, but eventually they learned to respect him, even admire him. Women liked money, they craved jewels, but what they really loved was power.

Ednis turned the pebble on his palm and turned possibilities in his mind. If this pebble was what he thought it was, he might be close to more power than he had dared dream possible in this reeking province.

Reeking of puke, Ednis thought, looking at the splash of Ector’s vomit that still defiled his desk. For Quamsake, I forgot to make him clean it up. He swore bitterly and stomped out.

Reeking of puke, For Quamsake, I forgot to make him clean it up.