David Baldacci - The Finisher

Thansius added, “And that way Mr. Delphia could have not just coin with which to live on, but a proper purpose for his remaining sessions?”

“Yes,” I replied.

I saw his eyes crinkle and his mouth widen into a smile. “I think it a sound idea. I will make preparations for doing just as you advise. Did you have anyone in mind?”

I gave him the name of a Wug who I thought would be a fine beast trainer. He turned to take up his ink stick and put on his specs to write the name down. As he did so, my hand shot out and scooped up a blank piece of parchment with Thansius’s name and the official seal of Council on top of the page. By the time Thansius turned back around, the parchment was safely in my pocket.

I watched closely as he wrote the name in a particularly stiff hand, so unlike the flourish with which I had seen Morrigone write and with none of the curlicues of which Domitar was fond. I thanked Thansius and hustled out.

I passed the prim Wug on the way out. “Oh, thank the Steeples you’ve come out in one piece, luv,” she said with obvious great relief.

I looked at her in surprise. “What, did you expect Thansius to do me harm?”

She looked horrified at the thought. “O’course not. I just thought you might, well, that you might simply combust from the honor of being in his exalted presence.”

“Well, I didn’t. Har!” I said crossly and made my way out.

Going down the steps, I patted my pocket where the official parchment sat. I had seized an opportunity that had presented itself. I smiled because I knew exactly what I was going to do with it.

I was going to write a letter.

This light was a very special one for me. I was going to make the most of it.

I WALKED DIRECTLY BACKto my digs, where Harry Two was waiting not so patiently for me. The plan had more fully come together in my mind as I was traveling here. I pulled the chair over to my table, took out my ink stick, filled it and then set to my task with the parchment. I had to see out of one eye, but I knew what I wanted to write.

I had seen Morrigone write on the report that a Wug working on the Wall had given her. Thus, I’d had a good gander at her handwriting. I knew now that all the parchment at Stacks that had constituted my instructions in building the pretty things for two long sessions had been written in her hand. I did not think my fury at the female could have increased, but it had. She had me work my fingers to the bone for low wages and all the pretty things had ended up in a hole.

Yet it was not Morrigone’s handwriting that I would be replicating this light. It was Thansius’s. And I had seen several examples of Thansius’s penmanship on his desk at the Council building. The letter was composed slowly as I took great pains to make the recipient believe that the missive had come from the Chief of Council, using words that I had heard him employ many times.

I set the parchment aside after it was completed. My stomach was rumbling and I looked in my larder, which, unfortunately, I found to be empty. As I stared at the barren space, I put my hand in my pocket and found the coins that I had won from Litches McGee. I had never done this before but I decided now was as good a time as any. I started to head out, but then I looked down at myself. I was battered, bloody and filthy.

I went to the back of my digs with a bit of suds and spent ten slivers rubbing the dirt off with water from the pipes. I had taken off every stitch of clothes I had on, right down to my skin only. I dried off and went back inside. My hair was wet but clean and I could stand the smell of myself for once in a great while. I again looked at the coins in my hand and an idea occurred to me.

It was an impossibly silly idea, but I thought, Why not?

I found a too-short pair of trousers and a too-small sweater my mum had knitted for me sessions ago, from the stack in the corner that I had failed to finish sorting through. I squeezed my long feet into too-tight shoes from three sessions ago. At least these things were clean, or anyway, far cleaner than my usual clothes.

There was a shop on the High Street called Fancy Frocks that sold female clothing. I had passed it often with never a thought to going inside. When I opened the door, a bell tinkled and a shop’s assistant, a plump female about forty sessions old, quite nattily attired, came out from the back. She looked at me with a severe eye.

“Can I help you?” she asked in a way that told me she believed me beyond assistance.

I was suddenly tongue-tied and my confidence, shaky at best in situations like this, dropped through my feet and directly onto the floor. I mumbled, “I was hoping for some new things.”

“What was that?” she said in a loud voice.

“Some new things,” I said halfheartedly. I had about made up my mind to turn and walk back out. Wugs like me just didn’t do things like this. Our clothes came as hand-me-downs when they came at all.

“Well, why didn’t you say so, dear?” she said. “I suppose you’ve got coin?” she added inquisitively. I held out a palm full for her to see. Her face brightened. “More than enough.” She put on a pair of thick specs. “Now let me look at you.”

Her eyes behind the glasses widened. “Why, you’re that lass in the Duelum. Vega Jane.”

“Yes, I am.”

She looked me up and down. “You’re tall and slender and you’ve nice wide shoulders and long legs. Clothes will hang well on you, my dear.”

“They will?” I said in a perplexed tone. Clothes hanging well was something I knew nothing about.

“Now, let me just nip some things out and we’ll see what we’ll see, shan’t we?”

Many slivers later and many garments tried on, some discarded and others settled upon, she had packaged my new clothes while I now wore the one she had fitted me with because, well, I fancied it the best. The clothes I had come in with went directly into the dustbin.

Now I wore a blue frock, white stockings and shoes that had heels on them and made me even taller.

She gazed in admiration at her handiwork. “Well, I’ll be. I knew there was something under there, dear. We just had to dig for it, didn’t we?”

“I guess so,” I said in a half whisper.

“Now what about your hair, luv?” said the kindly if exuberant Wug who had long before introduced herself as Darla Gunn. There was a looking glass mounted on the wall. I stared at myself in it.

“What about my hair?” I asked.

Darla eyed it with what I thought was a professional appraisal. “Well, it needs a bit of sorting out. Tidying up, like. Maybe a cut or two or three, if you know what I mean. Nothing too drastic, well, maybe just a wee bit drastic.” She sighed and added in an apologetic tone, “It does need some work , dear.”

I gave a few stabs at it with my hand and it settled back down just as unruly as before. “How?” I asked.

“Oh, there are many ways. And seeing as how you’ve surely spent a good many coins this light, I’ll throw the tidying-up in for free.”

“Will it hurt?”

Gunn laughed. “Crikey! And you being in the Duelum and all.”

I smiled and touched my battered face.

She said, “Saw you best Non, Vega. Cheered like a mad female, I did. Just didn’t want to go on about it when I recognized you. You’re like, well, a celebrity now, aren’t you?”

I flushed at these words.

“But your poor face. Your eyes, that nose. Well, I’ll see what I can do to tidy them up till they heal good and proper.”

She was as true as her word. The things she did to my hair and how she doctored my face were totally foreign to me. When she was done and had laced a white ribbon with a bow through my newly done tresses, I looked in the glass and caught my breath. It seemed that I had disappeared and been replaced by another female.