The rewrite of Thief-Taker went back to Gollancz a couple of days back. I’m supposed to be back working on Order of the Scales, but frankly, a short break is in order. OOTS is going to be some heavy work between now and the end of June when it’s supposed to be ready, and I need to catch my breath for a moment, if only to take stock for a moment of how busy I suddenly seem to have become. It all started with this:

which very quickly turned into this:

Forgive them, for a moment, for getting the title of King of the Crags slightly wrong…

Then there’s this: The Write Fantastic’s fifth anniversary event in Oxford (St Hilda’s College no less, which is about the one college I actually recognise in Oxford) on Sunday 9th May. For anyone who doesn’t know, The Write Fantastic exists to promote fantasy fiction to non-fantasy readers, particularly younger readers.

The after that, there’s the Lincoln Book Festival, where there’s going to be a panel (1pm, Sunday 16th) on genre fiction supplied by the all-powerful John Jarrold. Fantasy, I am your representative, so you’d better all be nice to me for the next couple of months.

Finally there’s the UK Games Expo, on the 5th & 6th June. Might well be there. And of course, there’s Eastercon!

And finally finally,  I got sent these fan-pics of The Sorcerer by Michael Peinkofer! Just goes to show that certain cover-art conventions aren’t limited to the English-speaking editions…

So yes, maybe we shouldn’t have lit a great big fire when we’re well within the scouting range of an enormous army of orcs and slimies and gods-know-what, but before long it’s either that or freeze to death. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that I finally got warm enough to get to sleep just in time to be woken up in the middle of the night with someone screaming something about ogres and nine-foot tall monsters stomping about the place. They hit hard, too. I see Stalker and Shifty go down one after the other. Like everything else, though, ogres go down when you stick them with enough arrows. That’s what you get for wrecking what little was left of my sleep, you fat-bellied fuckers.

NEXT WEEK: THESE ARE NOT THE ORCISH HORDES YOU’RE LOOKING FOR

Berren: Ok, so I’m learning to be this really cool dude who springs about the place, whacking down bad guys and I’m totally the star of the story and everything…

Syannis: What my idiot apprentice means to say is that he’s learning the trade of thief-taking. What he has still failed to grasp is that this largely consists of talking to people. As you’ll see from his story, he used to cut purses and, literally, shovel shit for a living. I’ve taken pity on him and…

Berren: You mean you were too embarrassed that I stole your purse!

Syannis: …and taken him to teach him the ways of taking thieves. Which mostly consists of trying to batter a few manners into his head and teaching him to read and write.

Berren: And swords! You’re going to teach me swords, right. One day.

Syannis <rolls eyes>: If you ever learn your letters, yes.

Berren: That’s why I want to be a thief-taker. The first time I saw Master Sy, he killed three men who tried to jump him. It was awesome. I want to be like that.

Syannis: It was an unusual day.

(To Syannis) Are the rumours true that you only took Berren on because he’s the spitting image of someone you used to know?

Syannis: I don’t know where you heard that. I fancied an apprentice, that’s all.

Berren: No, he was just mad because I took his purse.

So, Berren, you used to be a thief and now you’re a thief-taker? How did that come about? What’s wrong with a bit of honest work in the first place?

Berren: Look, after the war and the siege and everything, there were a lot of boys and girls born without any fathers. Khrozus’ boys they call us. What happens if there’s no one to look after you in a place like Deephaven, is that you get put into a city orphanage until you’re old enough so they can sell you to someone who wants a young pair of hands. I was lucky to not  wind up on a Taiytakei slave ship. So I got sold to Master Hatchet, who sends his boys out to clean the dung up off the streets and he expects us to pay for our food while we’re at it. How? It’s not as though anyone else is giving us any money. Cleaning up the streets pays off our debt, he says. So we have to start picking pockets and cutting purses to eat. And then he has us running all sorts of other errands. Not like we had much of a choice.

Syannis: This city breeds thieves. That’s what happens when money falls out of the sky.

What about you, Syannis, what’s your story. How did you end up a thief-taker?

Syannis: I came to Deephaven about eight years ago. It seemed to suit my skills. I hate thieves.

Is there a particular reason for that?

Syannis: Yes.

Care to share?

Syannis: Not really, no. It has nothing to do with what I do now.

Berren: That’s not quite… <bites lip>

Well what did you do before?

Syannis: Nothing of any consequence.

Berren: Well where did you learn to fight like that, eh? And what about Kasmin – he called you…

Syannis: He calls me all sorts of things. I had another life before I came to Deephaven. That life is finished. There’s nothing more to say.

Berren: He called you a…

Syannis: Nothing. To. Say.

So this story, why don’t you tell us about what happens?

Berren: Like I said, we’re these really cool dudes who spring about the place, whacking down bad guys and there’s this gang of pirates we’re after and then there are the snuffers and there’s this girl, Lilissa, who’s really sweet and she gets into trouble and then there’s Jerrin who used to be one of Master Hatchet’s boys who’s got it in for me for some reason and he’s doing all this stuff and…

Syannis: Mostly it’s about how hard it is to teach Berren anything that he actually ought to learn. Like how to read and write.

Berren: And I stow away on this boat and there’s this big fight and…

Syannis: And how to keep out of fights.

Berren: Oh, and then there’s this time when I caught out in The Maze and I have to hide…

Syannis: And how to stay out of trouble.

Berren: And then there’s this time when Master Sy fights four men at once! (Looking at Syannis) and the time when I saved your life and you cut that bloke’s hand off. And then there’s that weird scary warlock down at the House of Cats and Gulls that Master Sy knows, and there’s this knife…

Syannis: (pointedly) And how to keep his mouth shut.

Berren: And then there’s this really big fire…

Syannis: And that thief-taking is mostly about talking to the right people and a little bit of detective work and that once you finally know who it is you’re after, you send in a big posse of militiamen while you wait at the back… Fire? What fire? I don’t remember a fire.

One final question. You’ve seen the cover art for your story now. What do you think.

Berren: I think we look cool.

Syannis: Wait, that’s supposed to be us?

Berren: Can I have a big black cloak like that? With a hood? That looks so sweet. I bet it billows out behind you like a great black cloud when you run, too.

Syannis: I bet you’d trip over it.

Berren: Have you actually got a cloak like that? Does that mean I’m going to get one too? And a sword! I have a sword! When do I get my sword?

Syannis: When you learn your letters.

Berren: Yeah, I think the picture’s really great. That’s exactly how I want to be in a couple of years. It’s really us. We’re going to be the most feared thief-taking team in the whole of Deephaven.

Syannis: With a hood? So that all that being feared is completely wasted when no one can recognise you?

Berren: Yeah. All dark and mysterious. Girls go weak for a tall dark mysterious stranger.

Syannis: Firstly you’re a short-arse, and secondly, no generally they don’t.

Berren: Especially with a really cool sword. I think it’s great. As soon as I can, that’s the way I want to look. I’m going to get some clothes like that right now.

Syannis: I think it makes us look like a pair of virgin wannabe snuffers.

Berren: Well you look like an old shopkeeper in your stupid old coat. Those new cloaks are great! When do we get them?

Syannis: And clumsy old cavalry swords left over from the war? I don’t think so. Try using one of those in a narrow alley. You probably couldn’t even hold it properly…

The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice is published in August 2010

…and then, of course, the scouts of the ARMY OF DARKNESS itself creeping across the land. Against these, Diamond Cascade and his companions fought battle after battle, slaughtering goblins, orcs and even ogres in droves. Diamond Cascade himself personally slew dozens of these evil soldiers of corruption.

Yeah yeah yeah, but not before we spent an entire day being annoyed to shit by some dumbass pixies. HELLO small helpless-yet-hard-to-hit annoying things? Does it occur to you to to go and bother the great big army of orcs and goblins and ogres and so forth with your intensely irritating little pranks? Does the thought cross your eeny-weeny little thoughts that maybe, what with orcs and ogres and slimies being a pretty foul-tempered lot, you might for once in your otherwise futile little lives actually even achieve something useful? A reminder, little pixie-folk: We’re talking about orcs and ogres here. Not slimies. Slimies, yes, well, I can see how you might like to let them in just for the fun of annoying them into killing each other other. But orcs and ogres are another matter. These are creatures who will smash your forest flat if no one stops them. You might get a giggle or two out of them on their way, but in the end they’ll leave you with nowhere to hide. And then they’ll pull your wings off to floss with and, eventually, stick you on a skewer, roast you alive and eat you. But no, no, little pixies, instead of sowing discord among people who would like to rape you and then eat you, you’d rather annoy the nine hells out of us, the only people you’ve actually seen trying to stop them.

So, pixies. You remember this day. Remember it well, just as I will. One day you can rue it.

This all started in the morning and just kept on going. By the time we ran into a gang of slimies, I don’t know what I was more grateful for. Having something to take it all out on, or that something as scary as – oooh – a couple of dozen slimies was enough to scare the little winged jackasses away.  Apparently there were a couple of other things, but I was mostly busy with the slimies. Man, a good slaughter of the little buggers was just what I needed. Cleared my head nicely. Got a nice bow off one of them too. Must have been quite a fight somewhere where I wasn’t, on account of how battered up everyone else seems to look. We’ve lost a dwarf (no great disaster), and the walking liability that was Tiarth appears to have blundered off into the woods. After an hour of searching, we’re pretty sure he’s not dead, on account of there being no body. We’re also pretty sure he doesn’t want to be found, on account of him being a blind elf with extra-acute hearing, and us making slightly more noise than the approaching army. Don’t know what we did, but frankly it’s all one great big sigh of relief all round that we won’t have ever have to experience the sheer jaw-dropping horror of watching a blind man throw a greatsword at a stuck-in-the-mud owlbear before then wading in to apparently try and wrestle it to death. No, bye-bye Tiarth Friend-bane and good riddance.

It’s an imperfect world, so of course we don’t get to butcher a band of slimies and ditch Captain Liability without there being some small price to pay. It seems the goblins had some lunch they hadn’t gotten around to eating yet, some doubtless annoying little halfgit woman. Gives us a reason to head south and abandon our current quest, but we’ve abandoned so many before getting very far that you know, just for once, I think we should at least get as far as the Underdark before we realise what a colossal mistake we’re making and run off to be ineffectual somewhere else.

NEXT WEEK: SLEEPING IN THE WOODS IN WINTER

Still: Last night was the annual Orion bash, and a couple of comments still ring in my ears. Amid the Amazon vs. Macmillan malarkey, iPads and other shenanigans and the poorly advertised possibly-not-actually-a-fact that the e-book version of The Adamantine Palace will have something pushing 60,000 words of extra material in it, I’d somehow gained the impression that e-books were, somehow, well, y’know, important? Apparently not. According to Peter Roche, chief executive of the Orion Publishing Group, there is the possibility that e-books will expand greatly in 2010, possibly up to a whopping great 2% of total sales. Woo-hoo. Yes, the trend will doubtless continue and yes, it will vary from genre to genre (cookery e-book? Better be sauce-proof). But still. Woo-hoo. I’ll do the bonus material but I’ll not be rushing out to acquire a system developers tool-kit for iPad apps just yet.

This was a statement made during the annual Orion state-of-the-union address. The second most thought-provoking comment came from Adam Roberts, which went something along the lines of ‘What? You’re just going as a tourist? You’re not even doing research?’ This in response to me being off on a little trip in a couple of months. I didn’t have an answer to that, and it’s taken me a full day to realise why. So in lieu of being on the panel about fantasy research at Eastercon, here’s my ha’penny on researching for epic fantasy. It’s simple, really. Everything is research. I’m never a tourist. I was doing research last night in the Royal Opera House, listening to the acoustics and looking at the shape of the ceiling. I will be doing research in the Andes, on the look and feel of mountains. Not all that long ago I did some research on what it’s like to stand on the open top of a tall tower (very windy). Right now I’m researching how to share your lap between a laptop and a cat (tricky and prone to typos). Research for fantasy is endless. Go visit every terrain the world will offer you. Master geography. Understand how every culture works and why. Learn how science and technology developed. Get your head around the sum of human history. Slide into the heads of other people and figure out what make them tick. Do all of that and you’ll have everything you need to build worlds that are effortlessly real. “You’re not even doing research?” Doesn’t have an answer because the question doesn’t compute.

Even with the ‘blessing’ of the foul fiend that was the lich-king, Diamond Cascade and his companions still faced many perils in crossing the Haunted Wood, from such mundane creatures as snakes and mischievous pixies to the horror of a MONSTROUS OWLBEAR…

Snakes. I hate snakes. I hate these woods. What sort of dumb snake drops down on a man from up in the trees and tries to eat them in front of their friends. It wasn’t like they were that hard to skewer, but… EW! And then there was the whole trouble of trying to put an arrow through a snake while it was wrapped around someone who, as things go, is as close to a friend as you can be with someone who regularly steals stuff of you.

No, scratch that, actually I don’t think I tried that hard not to put the arrow through the snake and through whoever it was strangling. I can’t even remember who the snake was trying to eat now, but I think from my lack of concern about whether I shot them at the same time as the snake, I can narrow it down to… to… to being anyone I haven’t slept with. Not including The Gnome. OK, so not Wolfgirl.

Now look, here’s a little tale that tells you all you need to know about gnomes. Think about this next one, and then remember that their ENTIRE RACE is like this. Then ask yourself whether we were acting for the greater good by trying to save them from annihilation. Y’see, we found this cart, blocking the trail we were following across the forest. One cart, one broken axle, one chest, no owner. We call out, being good-spirited folks and not wanting to be caught red-handed in any looting that might follow. No answer. So, hey, finders-keepers we figure, and Shifty sets to opening up the chest (locked of course). I don’t know what we’re expecting, but something worth having, for sure. Not a cloud of gas that did nothing more than make everyone nearby fall about helpless with laughter. In the middle of nowhere. WHAT, EXACTLY, WAS THE POINT OF THAT?  That’s a sane question, right? To a gnome, though, it’s a dumb question with an obvious answer. What do you mean what was the point? The point was obvious. Or else what do you mean there has to be a point of some sort? Yeah. Gnomes. Why are we saving them, again?

Maybe the answer is in the owlbear fiasco. Yes, we fought an owlbear. Yes, I largely took it down. Me, largely on my own, keeping well away and sticking it with arrows. Of course, we had no idea what the hell it was at the time, just some great massive bear thing with an enormous beak the size of my arm, waving its arms and squawking and hooting and acting all leery. I suppose you would, if you were the relic of some mad wizard experiment to mix an owl and a bear together. What next? The mosquito-wolf, who hunts in packs and sucks your blood and kills you with strange tropical diseases? No wait, whoever brought us the Stirge probably already did that? OK, the stoat-bat? The ant-fox? A cross between a caterpillar and a cheetah, vastly over-engineered for the lettuce it calls its prey?

Anyway, it come shambling through the woods at us making a fuss and clearly means to eat us, and we all fly into a panic. Scatter and run away is the first thing that comes to my mind, on the grounds that all these short stumpy non-humans and Stalker in his heavy armour are more likely to get caught that fleet-footed me, and maybe by the time this horror has finished eating them it’ll be full and fancy an afternoon nap. What’s it doing out here anyway? It’s the middle of the day and the middle of winter. Bears hibernate! Owls are nocturnal! Shouting its contradictions at merely seemed to enrage the beast, and I was all for riding away, until the Gnome did possibly the cleverest thing I’ve ever seen anyone do. She threw a spell at the monster, turning the ground underneath it into thick mud, miring it down. Bogged down as it was, and with me being the expert archer that I am, you’d think it’s fate was sealed. You’d think that everyone else would have the sense to stand back and pepper it with arrows too until it fell. That or run like buggery and be gone before it hauled itself out. You’d really think that no one would be SO STUPID as to throw themselves into the mud in an attempt to go toe-to-toe with a nine-foot bear armed with a two foot hooked beaked while up to their waist in heavy mud. Or, if you’re a dwarf, up to your neck. But no. Its first one dwarf, then the other, then even the blind elf (sweet gods, how did he ever live even this long) are throwing themselves at the monster, getting stuck, smashed to bits and, in the case of the Blind Elf, nearly drowning. In fact, if I remember rightly, Blind Elf threw his sword at the Owlbear first. I am, truly, at a loss to explain the behaviour of non-human races sometimes. All we humans did the sensible thing and stood back.

So maybe that’s why we’re saving the gnomes. Because, daft as they are, they’re no worse than any other non-humans. And for being, for once, the only other person with any sense, I shall try to remember that The Gnome has an actual name. Holli. Which is probably short for something with about twenty syllables, but it’ll do.

NEXT WEEK: OGRES AND GOBLINS AND ORCS, OH MY! (aka A FOND FAREWELL TO CAPTAIN LIABILITY)

In the meantime, as the UK celebrates(?) its biggest ever lottery win, I note that this would equate to selling roughly 100 million books. I’m estimating a roughly 50/50 chance of achieving this before the sun explodes [1].

For those of you looking for anything more substantial, I have left a mess over on John Scalzi’s blog, in which I fantasize  that there might be some sort of element of vicarious satisfaction or even satire involved in writing stories about enormous fire-breathing monsters burning the shit out of people who badly badly deserve it.

Oh, wait, that doesn’t happen until later…

[1]  All right all right, swells up into a red giant and vapourizing everything, strictly isn’t the same as exploding.

The quickest route from the gnomish lands to the mountain tunnels that would lead Diamond Cascade into the nest of evil that was the under-dark led straight through nothing less than THE HAUNTED WOOD OF THE LICH-KING! Without flinching from this most unnatural of terrors, Diamond Casade left without hesitation, riding straight for the heart of this cursed land. Others might have skirted around this evil place, but Diamond Cascade knew that every day lost would mean innocent gnomish lives sacrificed to the slaughter-machine of the under-dark; instead, he and his companions struck for the centre, riding swiftly and directly to the black heart of the Haunted Wood. They found the lich-king’s very tower and burst through its blackened doors. Dark were the things they found there, things not to be spoken of to any but the bravest hearts, yet with courage and fearless resolve they prevailed and, not succumbing to the lich-king’s terror, crossed the Haunted Wood untouched by the supernatural horrors that dwell within its depths.

Yeah. Fearlessly and boldly and without a damn clue where we were going. We’re supposed to be finding the Gnome King and of course, the only person who knows where to go is The Gnome. So we blindly follow as she leads us deeper and deeper into the Haunted Wood. Deeper and deeper and deeper. Until it starts to get dark. Thanks, Gnome.

Did I mention we have a couple of Mad Dwarves. Grimoril and Kiljerk or something. Hurrah. More non-humans. Remnants from the gnomish cellar. With a bit of luck they won’t last too long. Kiljerk. There’s a jerk or two within throttling distance I wouldn’t mind stabbing, that’s for sure.

Yes, she would get us turned into drooling undead monstrosities just for a laugh. There is, therefore, and for a little while, a certain amout of shitting ourselves going on before we begin to realise that all is not quite as it seems. Wolfgirl doesn’t seem bothered either, and Wolfgirl isn’t very high on the party jerk list. By the time we reach the tower of the lich-king (and reach it we do), I have an idea I know what’s going on. And it turns out I was right. Which is just as well, because we really did go to the lich-king’s tower, and we really were pretty fearless about it and we really did kick his door in and face him down, and if he’d really been what he was pretending to be then we’d be undead minions by now, cast into perpetual pain and torment. I’ll say no more, but for those befriended by the gnomes of the Haunted Wood, the undead there are not so terrible. The lich-king, you see, is a gnome and subject to all the whims of foibles that brings, and more than that I shall not reveal, save to remind those who are not friends of gnomes that a lich-king with a twisted sense of humour is still a lich-king.

NEXT WEEK: THE GREAT OWLBEAR FIASCO

Readings. Yes, and in a bar. Having them there caused some debate, mostly of the ‘it’s too bloody loud in here’ variety, but I’m not so sure about that. I’d draw the line at having to complete with the pub televisions showing the six nations at the same time as someone’s trying to read aloud – that was a bit harsh, even for Science Fiction authors – but the basic idea, I thought, was sound. Would I rather listen to someone read and talk with a pint in my hand and a bit of atmosphere, or would I rather listen in a sterile room tucked away in some part of the hotel that I can’t even find (yes, Fantasycon, I’m looking at you)? I’ll take the bar. As for the reading… I can understand why the background noise annoys some people, but set against that there’s the ebb and flow of people, because as panels and movies end (and we readers where certainly a mere sideshow in all of this), the bar is the natural place for people to go. So they come, and we were there to entertain them. So not all bad, and I felt we were honouring older traditions of story-telling by reading in the bar. Sure, some people weren’t interested. There was talking and noise in the background. But people came, and it was down to us and our stories to be interesting enough to keep them. It’s not the same as reading to a room where everyone has come specifically for the person who’s going to read, but I don’t see that makes it better, only different.

I, however, had none of this to contend with. What I had was Tom Baker on the main stage somewhere above me, and you can guess who got the better of that one. My thanks to those who stayed and listened anyway, particularly the two or three people who weren’t from the Gollancz or SFX crew.

I had fun, but then that’s a pretty easy thing to say when all you’ve got to do is show up at the seaside, sit in a bar all day and be offered drinks and Thai takeaway while watching the occasion sith lord order Doritos from the bar. I mean, really, what’s not to like? So apart from opinions on giving readings, go ask someone else what it was like.

Not that Diamond Cascade particularly wanted to. In fact, Diamond Cascasde was thoroughly enjoying himself in the gnomish inn, thank-you. Don’t imagine for a moment that my opinion has changed and that gnomes aren’t generally irritating dicks because it hasn’t and they are; but one thing I’ll give for them is that they throw a good party. Annoying in the day when you actually want to get anything done, but when you want to let your hair down afterwards, they suddenly become a lot more bearable. And that’s the Vale way. Work hard, play hard. Preferably without too much of the work bit.

So we’d showed up to this inn I’ve never seen before. I’ve been up and down the road to Osmuld several times. The last time I was on my own and on foot and I reckoned I’d stopped in every inn on the way to Nerverrest, but apparently I missed this one on account of it being disguised as a tree. If you crawl into the hollows among its roots, however (and I do mean crawl if you’re human), then underground there’s an inn for gnomes. It’s a bit muddy and dingy, but a damn sight better than sleeping out in the open of the haunted wood with winter coming on. Anyway, they’re welcoming enough and they obviously know Wolfgirl. We have a few drinks to relax and ease our aching muscles and distract ourselves from the rantings of that idiot dwarf. Dragons, coppers, greens. Bollocks, all of it. I might have a look at the books Shifty pinched, but I’m having much too much fun with The Gnome and Wolfgirl. If there’s one thing I’ll say for The Gnome, she has a talent for leading others astray. No need for cards and strip-poker today; a few beers and we’re off for a three-some. Scoring with The Gnome is hardly a challenge (she’s gone through at least two other gnomes by then and to my certain knowledge had the Blind Elf and at least two other gnomes later, although they were all doubtless a disappointment), but Wolfgirl is another matter. Most satisfying. More uses for a Mage Hand spell and a few bits of feather and fur than you’d care to imagine. By the time we’re done, Blind Elf is so drunk he’s tottering. Didn’t think elves get drunk, but there you go. It’s so tempting to try and swipe the armour he took from the ruined tower. I wonder if he even knows it’s magic? In fact I might even have snuck into his room to try. Memory is all a bit hazy. That’s my excuse, anyway, when I deny it.

And the morning, and we get to do what we always do when no one’s trying to kill us. We argue.
And argue
And argue
And argue
And argue
And argue.

Yes, morning brings the usual hangovers and endless debate about what we should do next, although this is somewhat sidelined by a no-holds-barred catfight breaking out between The Gnome and Wolfgirl (I can only assume they’re fighting over me). Frankly I can’t see why we don’t go back to Neverrest with the stupid letter we recovered from the mad dwarf and give it to the priests like we said we would and get the money they were going to pay. Shifty is adamant that we take it north and there will be even more money, but I kind of think that a gold coin in the hand is worth two in the bush. Wolfgirl and I go off for some more practice with Mage Hand and one or two shapeshifting tricks we’ve both apparently been working on. I have no idea what’s going on here: I’ve been trying to get into Wolfgirl’s pants for weeks, and now she’s practically tearing my clothes off. Getting one over The Gnome maybe? Marking her territory like a wolf? But hey – do I care why? And it’s vastly more pleasant than arguing on and on about where we’re going and what we’re doing. By the time we come back a couple of hours later (hey – you know what they say about older women), surprise surprise, the conversation has gone exactly nowhere. In fact we’d probably still be there if it hadn’t been for the dwarves in the cellar.

It’s not like I’m desperate to put myself in the way of someone else’s sharp and pointy metal bits, but by the time Wolfgirl and I have run out of Mage Hand spells they’ve moved on from arguing to recrimination, and anything, anything is better than listening to Stalker and The Gnome and Shifty going on and on and on about who stole what from whom and who can’t be trusted and who’s a thief and who’s not (and let’s face it, the only one of us who isn’t a thief is Wolfgirl). Frankly, I’d rather fight a bunch of deranged dwarves than listen to that, and hey, lucky for us, that’s exactly what’s burst up out of the tunnels under the inn. We pile off down into the cellars where some bunch of dwarves are bashing up some other bunch of dwarves and pitch in. I’m not sure I even knew which ones I was supposed to be thumping or why, so I just take my lead from the gnomes. Stalker is so slow in his clanking metal that by the time he gets there, it’s all over and done and we have a couple of deranged dwarves babbling on about armies of dark dwarves and dark elves and orcs and slimeys and all-sorts, all pouring out of the mountain tunnels like some great underground river of nasty, all heading towards the gnomish kingdom.

Don’t get me wrong. I have no love for gnomes. Where I want to be is in Neverrest, drinking beer in the Silver Dragon, tending to the delicates of the luscious Arbelloa and the feisty Wolfgirl, not to mention every other lady of that fair city who’s a sucker for a pretty face, a head full of platinum blond curls, the voice of a whole choir of angels and a mind as dirty as a goblin’s undergarment. I’ve done my share of fighting up in Osmuld and it wasn’t pretty and doing it in tunnels is hardly likely to be an improvement. But since the alternative is to stay here FOREVER arguing about where to go next, and who stol;e what from whom, and since Shifty isn’t going to give me the letter and I’m not ready to be stealing it from him, I’ve got nowhere better to go, and since Wolfgirl wants to go and help the gnome king and I want to keep her hot for me, that’s what Diamond Cascade will do. It’s not like I don’t owe the orcs and the slimeys a stabbing or two.

Oh. Might be worth noting that Stalker is dumb enough to blow the dodgy whistle we found (with a bit of prompting) and hey-presto! Raises a zombie dwarf. Oh how we laughed, especially the dead dwarf’s bruised and battered friends. Yes, they laughed lots.

NEXT WEEK: BACK-TALKING THE LICH-KING