Gnick climbed up Robert’s leg, across his back and up onto his shoulder. “Don’t drop me, moron.”
General Gnarly jumped onto Lily’s shoulder while her left arm linked with Robert’s. She covered her tattoo with her hand and Robert gripped the vial of blood around his neck tightly.
The group stepped forward and vanished through the door.
Chapter Sixteen
Follow That Dwarf
The wizard Niggle had barely slept. His night had been ruined by the events of the previous day. He could go for weeks on end without anyone showing up at his door. The Dwarf Rumpelstiltskin had been one thing, but the Agent Jack threatening him afterward had been enough to push Niggle’s nerves over the edge. He’d tried mixing a potion normally used for calming livestock before slaughter, and drunk it with Flabber-juice, an alcoholic beverage much like vodka only three hundred and twenty times stronger. The concoction hadn’t made a dent. He’d sat up on the edge of his bed all night, staring at the window, twitching spasmodically.
He looked at the same window now and the two Gnomes sitting on his window ledge stared back. One of them held a small dagger and was trimming his beard with it.
“Hello, wizard,” said the one not performing personal grooming.
“H-h-hello. I… uh… who, er… who are you?” Niggle could feel his insides begin to recoil, and sweat broke out on his brow. The best-case scenario was that he was hallucinating. Oh, how he wished he was hallucinating.
“My name is General Gnarly of the Warrior Gnomes of the Grimm Mountains and this is my lieutenant, Gnick.”
Not a hallucination, then.
“Uh, and why is he… uh… doing that?”
“Our beards grow an inch a day; they need trimming often.”
The wizard was feeling more and more queasy. “And h-h-how can I h-help you?”
“You can start by answering your door.”
There was a knock at the door, which caused the wizard to jump, knocking over one of his favorite tea sets.
Niggle made it halfway to the door and then turned back to the Gnomes. “It’s not a Dwarf, is it?”
“No.”
“Or an Agent?”
“One of them isn’t.”
Not really the answer he was hoping for. He twitched violently, opened the door and Lily pushed past him into the apartment. Robert smiled kindly and offered his hand to the wizard, who was so agitated that his pointy hat began to droop at an awkward angle. The wizard extended a shaky hand, realized he didn’t know the gentleman in front of him and retracted it again quickly.
“P-please, come in.”
“Greatly appreciated,” said Robert and stepped into the wizard’s home.
Lily had taken a seat by the fire, Robert stood by the window with the Gnomes, and Niggle stayed by the door, thinking that he should apply to move his chamber into a different tower.
“My name is Lillian Redcloak and I’m an Agent.” To prove the point she pulled up her shirtsleeve to show the dragon tattoo. “My associate, Robert Darkly, is an Othasider assisting in the pursuit of the Dwarf Rumpelstiltskin who has escaped… yes, Robert?”
Robert had raised his hand.
“Haven’t we already established that I’m originally from here? Or at least, my father is?”
“I don’t see the point.”
“Well, you keep introducing me as an Othasider but obviously I’m not. What?” asked Robert, apparently of no one. “Yes, I’ll tell her that, too. Not to mention that I think I’ve earned the right to be here.”
Niggle looked from the Othasider, or whoever he was, to the Agent. Obviously, this Darkly character was unhinged. Unhinged people were dangerous. Niggle began to mentally locate any sharp objects in his apartment and tried to map whether this Darkly character was anywhere near any of them.
“All right,” agreed the Agent, “Robert is indeed from Thiside but has grown up in Othaside. He’s now assisting us to track down the Dwarf Rumpelstiltskin who escaped from the Tower two nights ago. The Gnomes are here to protect us. We’d like to know if you’ve seen Rumpelstiltskin in the last twenty-four hours?”
“Yes,” replied Niggle quickly.
“Well, that was easy,” said Robert.
“L-l-look, I’ll tell you everything you w-w-want to know if you’ll just promise to leave right away. And have th-th-that Gnome put away the sharp th-thing.”
“I agree to your terms,” said the female Agent. “Now, tell us everything.”
The voice in Robert’s head had agreed it was a good point to make going forward. There seemed little doubt that he fit nicely into the world of Thiside. Better than he ever had in Othaside. And from the whispered conversation he’d heard, he knew his father was here somewhere, as they’d been talking about him in the present tense. A million other questions bounced around in his head. Why did he have a voice in his head? How did he heal from the attack by Lily’s werewolf? How did he survive the night of door jumping? Who was the head of the Agency? Where was Jack? Where was Rumpelstiltskin? What happened to the cat he’d found back at the halfway house?
“All very good questions,” said the voice, “but you should pay attention.”
Niggle was recounting what he knew as quickly as possible to get the visitors out of his room. “The d-Dwarf was here yesterday afternoon and he a-a-a-a-asked me to perform a finder spell for the same girl he was looking for almost f-fifty years ago.”
“Elise Bastinda?” asked Lily.
“Y-y-y-yes, how did you know that?”
“Doesn’t matter. Why did you help him all that time ago and again yesterday?”
“I w-was indebted to him for s-s-s-saving my life and I was very young. Now I’m just t-terrified of him.”
“So you performed the spell for him successfully?”
“Y-yes. I’ll be happy t-t-to tell you the location, the same way I did to your other Agent.”
“What other Agent?” said Lily.
“Jack. The G-G-Giant Killer.”
“He’s Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk?” said Robert, impressed.
Lily gave him a stern look.
“Sorry,” said Robert.
“Jack was already here?” Lily asked Niggle.
“Y-yesterday afternoon, a c-c-c-couple of hours after the d-Dwarf left.”
“Why does Rumpelstiltskin need the last Bastinda?”
Niggle looked down at his feet, apparently in the fond hope that he could spontaneously combust.
“Come on, Niggle,” said Lily, “what’s he doing? Why does he need the witch? She must be almost sixty years old.”
The wizard sighed and looked at Lily with sad eyes. For a moment, he looked very old. “When he s-s-saved my life, the payment wasn’t the finder spell. He w-wanted access to the Council archives.”
“And you gave it to him.”
“I was y-y-young and scared. He j-j-just wanted a few minutes in there and I didn’t see the danger from j-j-just a few minutes. It wasn’t until years later that the Council learned of the m-m-missing pages.”
“Pages from what?”
“One of the archival spell b-books. Volume s-s-s-sixty-s-s-s-six. It chronicles the research into the doors and how the b-blood of the White Rabbit was incorporated into the system so it became regulated.”
“And the missing pages?”
The wizard swallowed. “Th-they d-detailed how to remove those regulations.”
“So Rumpelstiltskin has the knowledge to remove the need for passports. Anyone would be able to pass through the doors on either side.”