David Baldacci - The Finisher

“How did you know?” I called out, though I couldn’t keep the grin off my face.

“’Cause you ain’t dead, that’s why.”

“Dad!” exclaimed a mortified Delph.

“He’s right, Delph,” I said. “I’m not dead, ergo, I won.”

“What you be doing here, then?” asked Duf. “Should be, I don’t know, celebrating, eh?”

I walked up to the steps and sat next to him. Harry Two, who had come with us, let Duf scratch his ears.

“Right good canine there,” said Duf. “He was here this light, weren’t he, Delph?”

“He was,” said Delph. “But now he’s back with Vega Jane, right and proper.”

I said, “How are the timbers coming? Delph said one has a crack.”

“Aye, but it’ll be fine, don’t you know. Getting used to the things, I am.”

I took the bag of coins from my cloak and held it up. “The winnings,” I said.

“Har,” he said. He pointed the lip end of his stick bowl at it. “Now, that’s some winnings, I tell you. Thousand coins. Right, Delph?”

“Right.”

“Well, it’s our winnings,” I said.

“What?” said Delph, looking gobsmacked.

“Delph helped train me up, Duf. Never would’ve won without his help.”

“G’on with yourself,” said Duf. He puffed on his stick bowl and studied me curiously.

“And since I’ve no head for coin, I want you and Delph to take it.”

“Vega Jane, are you nutters?” exclaimed Delph.

“You’d be doing me a favor, actually,” I said. I looked around the land. “Where are the beasts?” I asked. “The adar and the young slep?”

Duf slapped his timber and for the first time, I saw the hopelessness in his expression. “Gone, ain’t they?”

“Gone where?”

“To a Wug can train ’em up proper, that’s where. And that Wug ain’t me.”

“What Wug?” I said.

“Crank Desmond.”

“Crank Desmond! He doesn’t know a slep’s arse from the other end, does he?”

“Be that as it may, he got two good legs and I got none. Har.”

I held up the bag of coins higher. “Then what we’re going to do is bring a young Wug here, pay him a proper wage and train him up.” I looked around at the empty corrals. “And we can turn it into a business.”

“Bizness? What’d you mean?” asked Delph.

“I already talked to Thansius about this. I gave him a name of a Wug who I know likes beasts. He said he was all in favor of it.” I paused, thinking through my next words as Duf and Delph continued to stare at me, openmouthed. “They sell beasts around here, young ones, don’t they? Cretas and sleps and whists and adars and more. And Wugs with coin want them. Need cretas and sleps at the Mill and the Tillers. Wugs like Roman Picus need the whists. And who wouldn’t want to pay good coin for an adar that can keep ’em company and carry messages and the like?”

Duf sat a bit forward. “But Wugs just give me the beasts to train up.”

“So now you can sell ’em the beast along with the training. Bet it’ll be worth more coin to Wugs if you supply a handpicked beast too.”

“We don’t know nothin’ ’bout no bizness,” protested Delph.

“You know beasts, don’t you?” I pointed out. “That’s what’s important.”

Duf’s eyes twinkled. “She makes a right good point, Delph.”

Delph still looked confused. “Then you got to share in the coin we make.”

“Oh, you bet I will,” I lied.

I must have said this too quickly, because Delph eyed me funny. I gave the bag of coins to Duf, rose and said my good-byes. As I walked off, Delph caught up to me.

“What was all that chuff back there?” he asked.

“Duf and you can really make a go of it. You just needed a bit of coin.”

“Okay, but we need to talk about this.”

“We will. Next light. Now I just need some rest.”

I would never have that conversation with Delph.

Because I was going to leave Wormwood and enter the Quag. And I was going to do so this very night. I walked on.

STACKS LOOMED AHEADof me like a castle without a moat outside or a king or queen inside. While I knew other Wugs were managing a pub crawl with only the one pub, I had decided to come to my place of work for the last time. It was not for nostalgic purposes.

I opened the large door and peered inside. With the two jabbits dead, I wasn’t afraid to go inside, certainly not while it was still light. I knew now that Ladon-Tosh had guarded this place both light and night, just in different forms.

Domitar sat in his little office at his tilt-top desk. There was no scroll or ink bottle there. But there was another bottle present: flame water.

“I was hoping you might come by” was his surprising greeting as he waved me in. He poured a glass of flame water and took a sip. “Trounced the blackguard.”

“You saw the jabbits?”

He smacked his lips. “They were a wee bit hard to miss.”

I could tell from his expression that he knew what my next question would be.

“How did you know?” I asked.

He feigned surprise, though I could tell he didn’t mean it.

I said, “You said I’d done it before. Beaten Ladon-Tosh. But you really meant I’d beaten the jabbits before.”

“Did I?”

I ignored this. “That could mean one of two things.”

He set the glass down. “I’m listening,” he said amiably.

“One, you knew of my coming to Stacks at night. And of my being chased by the pair of jabbits to the little room on the second floor.”

“Dear me, dear me,” said Domitar.

I kept going. “Though I really didn’t beat them. I simply escaped from them.”

“Same as in my book, but please continue,” he said when I paused.

“Or you saw me destroy a flying jabbit on a great battlefield many sessions ago.”

I had expected him to look startled by this second possibility, but Domitar remained unshaken. “I will admit to the first, but not the second.” He tapped his glass against his chin. “Quite a mess you made here too,” he said. “Many pieces to pick up. Not really my job, but there you are.”

I felt myself growing warm. “So you knew about the jabbits in here?”

He finished the flame water in his glass. “Don’t know why I drink the stuff,” he said. “Becomes a habit, I suppose. So much of life does, doesn’t it?”

“The jabbits!” I cried out.

“All right, all right, but no Wug is supposed to come in here at night, are they?”

“Is that your answer?”

“Do I need another?”

“You bloody well do. I almost was eaten by those vile creatures.”

“Let that be a lesson to you, then.”

“Domitar, they were jabbits .”

“Yes, yes, I quite get the point, thank you. Hideous things.” He shivered.

“And what of the room with the blood? And going back into the past? And books that explode in your face? And the looking glasses with demons?”

He looked at me blankly. “I think perhaps the Duelum has affected your mind, Vega Jane. Do you need a lie-down?”

“So you’re saying you don’t know about those things here? You said this had always been Stacks.”

“I said this had been Stacks since I came here,” he corrected.

I folded my arms over my chest and continued to stare at him.

“What does Stacks look like to you?” he asked.

“Magic, sorcery, devilry, call it what you will, it’s strange.”

“I mean what does it look like from the outside ?”

I thought about this. “Like a castle I saw once in a book at Learning. But that was fantasy, not real.”

“Who says so?” he asked pedantically.