Алексей Пехов - Shadow Chaser

“That’s not important,” said Kli-Kli, brushing aside my objection. The jester was riding hard on his favorite hobbyhorse—the prophecies of the crazy magician Tre-Tre, may the light be a curse to him!

“Did the Order bind the demons with your help? It did! Has the sign come to pass? It has! Was there a purple bird in Hargan’s Wasteland? There was, and not just one, either!”

“If goblins call those flying monsters birds…”

“It’s a literary expression, my lad. You don’t know a thing about art. So, was there a bird?”

“Have it your own way,” I sighed. I couldn’t be bothered pointing out to this cocky small fry that the creatures spawned by the Kronk-a-Mor used by the Nameless One’s shamans should be called nightmares, not birds. “Okay, so there was.”

“Right! And you have a name now, don’t you?”

“Aha! Ever since I was a child. They call me Harold.”

“Pah, you’re hopeless! Are you really a total numbskull or just pretending so well that I can’t tell the difference? I’m not talking about the name you were born with, I mean the name you were granted from above. Dancer in the Shadows—that one! You agreed that I could call you that. And so you accepted the name.”

Yet again I cursed the day when I told Kli-Kli that he could call me that. The only reason I did it was to make the little pest leave me in peace, but instead he started yelling out loud for all to hear that the sign had been fulfilled. And now I could expect more, equally stupid goblin prophecies.

“And what prophetic sign do you have lined up next?” I asked the goblin scornfully.

“Next?” The jester screwed his eyes up, gave me a cunning look, and declaimed:

“Right,” I said, and couldn’t help laughing out loud. “It’s like I’ve always said: Your crazy shaman Tre-Tre ate too many magic mushrooms for breakfast.”

“Let’s have a few less unjustified insults, if you don’t mind!” said the goblin, baring his teeth at me. “Tre-Tre was my people’s greatest shaman! Artsivus and his Order can’t hold a candle to him.”

“Maybe not, but I’d rather let someone else decide that. Have you even figured out what that little jingle of yours is all about? I didn’t understand a thing.”

“That’s because you’re a fool,” the jester reminded me yet again. “It’s a prophecy, so you get to understand it when it happens. But it’s about to happen any minute, because the crimson Key has departed. Or to put it in normal language, someone has walked off with our artifact.”

“That Key of yours? Is it crimson, then?” Lamplighter asked.

“Well, no…,” said Kli-Kli, confused by the question. “It looks more like it’s made of crystal.… All right, Harold. Go and fill your belly, you and I have got a job to do.”

“I only have one job to do, Kli-Kli, the one I swore on Tomcat’s grave to finish. I’m going to get the Rainbow Horn, hand it over to the Order, grab my honestly earned loot and charter of pardon, and start living the good life. Nothing else concerns me, unless, of course, it happens to be a threat to my life or a chance to pick up some money.”

“But we do have a job to do,” Kli-Kli said very seriously. “Mumr and Eel are going to relieve Marmot and Egrassa.”

“I don’t see the connection. What’s that got to do with me?”

“In the first place, you can give Marmot his ling back.…”

“I can do that here,” I said, interrupting the goblin.

“In the second place,” Kli-Kli continued imperturbably, “Miralissa has asked you to take a look at the house and say if you can get inside and filch the Key from under the very noses of the Master’s servants.”

“Filch it? From under their noses?” I asked like an echo. “Me?”

“Yes, you! You’re our thief, aren’t you?”

There was nothing I could say to that. I picked the mouse up off the pillow, put him on my shoulder, and said: “Let’s go. Do you know the way?”

“Honeycomb came back this morning and told me. Eel’s coming along. Lamplighter, are you with us, too?”

“Yes.”

“All right then,” I said to the goblin as I walked out of the room. “But there’ll be no strolling round the city until I get my breakfast.”

“You’ll get your breakfast. Master Quidd laid the table ages ago.”

Birds were singing their song of summer joy, flowers were blooming, the sky was blue, the grass was green, the sun was shining. If I could have forgotten that the Key had been stolen from right under our noses and we still didn’t know what had happened to Loudmouth, it would have been a wonderful day.

“Do we have a long way to go?” I asked the goblin.

“Not very,” the jester muttered.

He was holding on to my sleeve with his right hand and hopping along on one foot, amusing himself and all the passersby. I couldn’t tear myself free, because the jester had a grip on my shirt sleeve like a tick on a dog’s ear, so I had to try persuasion. But my polite and heartfelt request to stop playing the fool and walk on two feet like normal people was refused. Then I tried to ignore the hopping goblin; after all, I couldn’t fight him in the public street, could I?

“How far is not very far?” I asked my companion after another unsuccessful attempt to tear my sleeve out of his tenacious fingers.

“About an hour,” Kli-Kli replied indifferently, and hopped over a stick lying on the ground.

I groaned.

“We’re going to the southern part of the city on Motley Hill. It’s quite a walk to get there.”

“For some it’s a walk, for some it’s an excuse to skip about and play the fool,” I remarked.

But Kli-Kli was all set to hop on one foot for the entire hour. “I’m so sorry they didn’t give us the carriage today,” the king’s jester quipped, hopping neatly over a puddle.

The little creep had lied. It was no more than twenty minutes from the inn to our destination.

The street leading up Motley Hill was an incredibly steep climb. By the time we reached the region where the big cheeses lived, I was drenched in sweat. But at least, Sagot be praised, the goblin finally let go of me.

“We could take a ride down the hill,” the jester murmured dreamily when we were almost at the very top.

I followed the direction of his eyes. There was an old, dried-up cart standing outside one of the houses, with wooden chocks under its wheels to stop it accidentally taking off down the hill and crushing some unfortunate pedestrian.

“Don’t even think about it!” I warned him.

“You don’t understand a thing about lucky finds, Harold. A fool, there’s no other word for it. Just look at that hill. We’d go flying along like a hurricane.”

“I don’t like this little idea of yours.”

“What little idea? Flying along like a hurricane?”

“The idea that we’ll go flying along like a hurricane. You may have decided to commit suicide, Kli-Kli, but there’s no need to go tangling other people up in your crazy plans.”

“Harold, you’re a real bogeyman. Relax, there’s no danger. Why bring up the subject of suicide?”

“Because, my little muttonhead, that hill is more than four hundred yards long! We’d get moving all right. And we’d pick up speed, too! Fly like a hurricane!” I said in a squeaky voice, teasing Kli-Kli. “But how are we going to brake, my little peabrain? Our bones would be scattered halfway across Ranneng!”