All turned to look at him, still sitting hunched over his drink. For some reason they were not impressed.
"If the danger is as great as you claim," he said, "I, Majestus Sinobe, am definitely needed."
"And what can you do that we need so?" Shing said.
The man flinched. He raised his head, revealing a thin face with hooked nose, thin lips and bright blue eyes that shone in the shadow of his hat’s brim. "Watch and be amazed," he said.
He rose to his full ten feet height, a haughty figure in his floppy brimmed hat, tattered clothes and dark blue coat. For a moment he looked down his nose at them, then stepped away from the booth, producing an orange from his tattered pocket. He held it up for their inspection—they glanced at it—before rolling it to the center of the room.
"Ball rise!" he commanded, arms raised, wrists bent, fingers crookedly pointing at the fruit.
The orange rose six feet into the air, hovered a moment and fell.
Majestus Sinobe looked upon them, head held high.
They were not amazed.
"Oh yeah," Chitintiare barked, backing away from the bar.
"You, little one, you think you are tougher than I, Bechendorf," the giant in copper chainmail said, brushing his six frightened companions aside with a forearm to pursue the Dork. "I, mighty warrior of many battles, past, present and future. You! Tougher? Ha!"
"Bring in on," Chitintiare dared, drawing his shortsword.
Laughing, Bechendorf drew his battle scarred broadsword and swung it two-handed over his head. The Dork stood ready. Bechendorf brought his sword arching down upon him. Chitintiare swung his blade arcing up to deflect the descending blade. The blades met—Tink!—and the larger blade continued down to split the Dork in half. Unlike the Grumpling, the Dork’s two halves fell in a grotesque puddle of blood and innards.
"Hey," Telluspett barked with a blink. "That was my brother."
He wiggled his way out of the booth, drew his shortsword and, yelling his outrage, charged the giant, blade first. Still laughing, Bechendorf swung his broadsword up for a repeat stroke… In his mad attack, the Dork slipped in his brother’s gore, flew forward, blade piercing the giant’s heart.
Bechendorf froze, turned stone gray, surprise ever etched on his face.
Telluspett hung from his shortsword, a dumb expression on his face,
Ty the Parson downed his drink, produced a pouch of gold from a baggy sleeve with a flourish of his arm and dropped it on the table. Everyone jumped at the jingling bang, spun their heads to gaze at him questioningly.
"The straight horned jumper pauses at water hole! We have refreshed ourselves and must spring forth. Make haste," he said, the flail of his limbs bringing him to his feet.
In a wild spine that ended in a wide-legged stance, he shot his staff forward to point at the inn’s entrance. He darted across the room, passing the man in tattered clothes without notice, and out of the inn, the batwing doors flapping frantically in his wake. A word from Shing, and Grash, brought the Party to their feet. They downed their drinks and hurried out of the inn.
"You need me," Majestus Sinobe proclaimed and quick-stepped it after them.
Telluspett hung from the hilt, watching them go over the heads of the giant’s six companions, who circled the statue of the man that had frightened them so. Around and around they went, amazement and relief growing on their faces. Finally, they stopped before the Dork, eyeing him closely.
One whistled. "I never thought I’d see the day," he said.
"The mighty Bechendorf has fallen," another said. "Long live…uh… Who are you?"
"Telluspett," the Dork said, sparing them a glance.
"Long live Telluspett," the six saluted him.
But the Dork barely noticed their accolades, lost in thought, though not in an intelligent way, before the quest that he was a part of drifted through the fog of his mind to take center stage. He blinked. The quest he was on—with the Party he just saw leave in a rush…. He blinked again. If they left in a rush, that meant…? He scratched his head, and a dim light flicked in his eyes. Oh. Yeah. That meant he had better get a move on before they left him behind.
He let go the hilt, landing almost off balance, and carefully walked through the crowd of men, who slapped him admirably on the back, and his brother’s innards. After a moment’s glance at his empty sheath, he picked up his brother’s sword and ran out of the inn, leaving behind him six men with fists in the air, cheering his name.
IX. The Dark Mountain
When the Party rushed out of the inn they stumbled to a stop, narrowly avoiding bumping into Ty the Parson, who stood just without, eyes on what lay directly across the road. They followed his gaze and were so startled by what they saw, none took the slightest notice, beyond recovering their balance, of Telluspett hurrying out of the inn and colliding with them.
The woods and overshadowing mountain they had ignored in lieu of the inn earlier was quite a foreboding sight.
Crowding the roadside were gnarly trunked, crooked limbed trees infested with stringy moss and cobwebs, and filled with eerie shadows. A narrow, crooked path offered passage through the nightmarish woods' depths to the base of the mountain. From there the path zigzagged its way up the craggy mountainside to a plateau just beneath black storm clouds, emitting thunderless streaks of lightning, which surround the mountain’s peak. And on the plateau stood—a castle! A monstrosity of stonework that no matter how hard they tried, they could not tear their eyes away from.
Made of deep gray stone, the castle’s round roof atop twin black windows, within which flickered dim lights, round topped entrance with fang-like portcullis and twin pointed corner towers gave it the look of a demon’s head. A wind sweeping through its openings gave off a growling moan of challenge for them to come…
It set their nape hairs on end, and no one’s nape hairs were more on end than the Midget’s.
Tarl was caught in a whirlwind of mixed emotions. Since Ty the Parson’s arrival at their farmhouse, not unlike Sleen Manibeen’s visitor, spouting the need for a mad quest, he had seen it as an avenue to break free of Dwarf Road and see the world. His thought they would travel a ways that ended up…nowhere of import, like the inn just exited…. Then Orlon assured him they still had a ways to go.
He cast a sideways glance at his best friend. Not only was Orlon’s assurance off—by all appearances their quest’s end was right across the road—it appeared to be, as at one point he had began to think it might be, for real!
Orlon did not even notice his best friend’s look, his mind caught in a quandary over what he saw before him. To his mind, that castle could only represent the end of their quest… What better place for evil Tibtarni—whatever to hold up in than that monstrosity of stonework? Which led him to question if such a castle on a mountain plateau, no matter how evil that mountain and its surrounding woods appeared, truly fit Ty the Parson’s description of the evil one’s abode being a "lair."
Yet that was not his only quandary. Clear in his mind was Ty the Parson’s proclamation the quest was twofold: first, to retrieve the Holy Pike, and second, to use said weapon to stop evil from taking over the world. He simply could not believe the castle represented anything other than the quest’s end. There was no way such an item as a Holy Pike would be found there. Surely such an item would be kept in a holy locale. Surely it would.
That led him to look at the creepily treed woods. A shiver danced along his spine as he watched its eerily swaying shadows, looked along its narrow crooked path. Nor would such an item be found there.