David Cook: King Pinch

At last the tickling stopped. She withdrew her mind and let him rest. Not that his dead muscles felt strained. What rest did a lich need or ever take? If it slept, the fierce will that kept it alive might waver and fade. If that happened there would be far fewer liches in the world.

All he could do was wait nervously for Maeve's decision.

And she damn well took her time. He knew he was Pinch and he knew she'd read enough of him to know that, but she was lingering on her pronouncement. No doubt, he raged to himself, she was enjoying having him on the spit. If he ever got out of this, he'd have to make sure she gained no profit from the venture.

"It's Pinch all right," Maeve said with a touch of awe. "I ain't sure what happened, but I know his fashion. It's him."

"That… thing is him?" Therin drawled, clearly filled with disbelief.

"He knows garbage what only Pinch would know, like how we fetched your body after the hanging in Elturel. More than that, too, like jobs we've pulled where there ain't nobody who knows them and all. I tell you, it's Pinch."

Therin looked back at the kneeling lich-thing. "Pinch, that really you?"

" 'Swounds, it's me, you big hay-headed Gur! I should've left you as that fortune-teller's stooge for all the good you're doing me."

Sprite and Maeve both looked at Therin with keen interest. It had always been a question between them just where the old master had found the big Gur.

"Well met, then, I guess," Therin hailed, face reddened at his secret. "Come over-but slowly, old man."

Lissa looked at the lot with a highly jaundiced eye, more than suspicious of their easy familiarity with this creature called Pinch. They talked all too freely of jobs and hangings to be anything like honest folk. She'd always had suspicions, but every time they arose, she'd convinced herself or let others convince her otherwise. Now, she finally realized, she'd been blind to it all this time.

"You're all a lot of thieves!"

"What did you imagine we were-lousy prophets?" Therin snapped.

"You lied to me!"

"We lie to everyone, miss," Sprite explained with glee. "It's our stock and our trade. Don't feel bad for being taken. We'd be pretty poor rascals if we couldn't fool anyone."

"Sprite's right, dearie," Maeve added to the chorus. "Consider yourself honored into our company. Pinch called upon you in particular for aid, so he must think highly of you-and it's Pinch now we've got to see to."

"Aye," Sprite echoed. He looked at the moldering form that shuffled closer. "What happened, Master Pinch?" There was still a hesitancy in his voice, lest this be some hideous creature approaching.

"Manferic," the corpse croaked. "He traded bodies with me-though I don't think that was his full intention."

"What happened?" Maeve demanded, magical business making her sharply attentive.

As quickly and clearly as he could, Pinch explained the course of his meeting with Manferic. He had no idea what clues were needed to restore his body and so, against his true nature, he spared nothing in the telling. When it was done, Pinch croaked, "Ladies, tell me. How do-"

"I'm not sure I should even help you, thief," Lissa cut in, still rankling at her discovery.

"Leave me and you leave Manferic. Would your conscience feel better by placing a lich on the throne, priestess? What would the Morninglord think of that?" Pinch snapped. He didn't have time for this. That he knew instinctively.

Lissa went white, then reddened, horrified at the prospect yet outraged as his tone. "Very well, in this… but in this only!"

With that settled, the two spellcasters looked thoughtful as they debated. Like plotters on the stage, they whispered dramatically to each other as they considered various possibilities.

"Pinch," Sprite asked while they waited, "if it can be done, what the plan?"

"Plan?

The halfling gave a wan smile. "Sure, a plan-you've always got a plan."

If he could have sighed in this musty body, he would have sighed. "You know, Sprite, all through this game I've had plans and schemes and thought I was in control. Now my life turns out to be one of Manferic's grand plans. Pinch the master planner-hah! Well, Sprite, this time I've got no plan. All my other plans have turned into traps as Manferic twisted my plots around. This time we're just going to improvise and let's see him plan for that."

"Great plan," Therin remarked gloomily.

The two spellcasters ended their conference and Maeve spoke for them both.

"About your body, Pinch. We don't know-"

"But there might a chance. If we can get you close enough to you-er, Manferic-I might be able to dispel the magic that holds you."

"And then?"

Lissa bit her lip. "I'm not really sure. You should switch bodies."

"Or?"

"Or both of you vanish into the void, like Manferic said."

"That's it? Just get this," Pinch gestured to the rot that was himself, "into the middle of a coronation and-"

"What was that?" Sprite hissed as he waved his hands for attention.

"What?"

"Quiet. Listen," the halfling commanded. He stood on his hairy tiptoes, his head cocked so that his pointed ears where tipped to catch the least chitter in the halls. "That-did you hear it?"

The others strained, hearing nothing.

"Ikri…"

There was a voice, faint and distant.

"Ikrit…"

From somewhere in the depths of the tunnels, a woman was calling.

"Ikrit!"

Pinch looked at the blasted white mass that choked the passage ahead. The quaggoth had been going somewhere, but not to Manferic. There was only one other choice. "The woman…"

"What? What woman, Pinch?" Sprite demanded.

"Lady Tulan, my mother," was the answer.

"By the Morninglord," Lissa gasped, "your mother's down here? I thought you were an orphan."

"It's a long tale to tell now." Pinch dismissed it with a wave of his rotted hand. His dead eyes suddenly glowed with cold light, a small spark of the willpower he'd inherited from his father. "We've got to find her. I know what revenge Manferic deserves."

"He's gone maundering. Wit's left him," Maeve whispered to Therin.

"Comes from being dead." The Gur tensed his muscular frame, just sensing the need if Pinch got violent.

"I'm not mad," their corpse-bodied leader growled, surprising them with the insight of his senses. "Just help me get back my proper body and I'll nip what Manferic and Vargo prize most. The first thing is to find my mother."

"Think she'll take a ghoul as a son?" The halfling, who had raised the question, didn't figure the query needed an answer. He was just reminding his captain of the realities of the situation.

"Gods' pizzle," he swore, "she can't see me like this! She'll think I'm Manferic." Pinch flapped the rags that hung on his body, waving his frustration.

"Leave her and we'll be out of here," Therin suggested.

"Mask curse you!" the regulator swore with a clear vehemence that was undimmed by his lipless elocution. "She's my mother."

"Yesterday she could've been a common stew for all you cared then!" Therin snapped back.

"Therin, he's got a plan," Sprite interceded, laying a hand on the bigger's arm. The small face looked up with ridiculously large eyes: Sprite's playing his looks for the sympathy of the crowd. "If we don't help him, then there ain't none of us like to get out of Ankhapur alive. It's you who should go find this Lady Whatever."

"Me?"

"You've a way with ladies. Besides, you think she'd heed me, only a halfling?"

"I'll go, too," Lissa volunteered, trying to do the noble thing.

"No-Maeve, go with Therin," Pinch ordered, treating the suggestion a done deal. "I'll need you, priestess, if we're going to be facing a lich."

"And what if I should say no?" Therin asked.

"Relish the rest of your life down here, do you?" Sprite added. When Therin frowned, the halfling added, "Then get going."