Shadows of Valderia: An Urban Fantasy Detective Noir

“It’s open!” came the call from within.

This time Ridley didn’t hesitate, he threw open the door and strode in. Nairo waited a moment to see if he came flying back out. Once she deemed it was safe she followed him in. A HobGoblin sat behind the counter, scribbling away on a thick notebook in front of him. Next to him lounged a hulking Goblin with his bare feet up on the desk. The HobGoblin looked up at their arrival while the Goblin fanned himself lazily with a sheet of paper and took no notice of them.

“Good afternoon and welcome to the All Mends workshop, how may I help you?” The HobGoblin said in a polite but bored voice.

“Err… are you BilBil?” Ridley asked.

The Goblin looked up at the mention of the name.

“No, I am Feezy, BilBil is our tinker,” the HobGoblin answered.

“Wot you want with BilBil?” the Goblin growled at them, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. He had a thick gut and tusks so long and curved they scraped against his cheekbones.

“And you are?” Ridley asked.

“Zarlut,” the Goblin spat the name like a curse word.

“I’m Ridley and this is Sally, we work for a particular man who is after a particular item,” Ridley said, rattling off another one of his convoluted yet seamless lies. “This man is very wealthy, and I mean very wealthy, who’s in a position to procure a particular item but needs some expert advise.”

“Wot item?”

“Afraid that’s on a need to know basis and you don’t need to know. But, my employer will make it worth your while.”

“And how do you know what my while is worth?”

Ridley sighed as if this was all such an inconvenience.

“My employer is Clarence Winterforth the third. As in nephew twice removed from an Owner.”

That caused a stir between the two Goblins.

“You ever heard of the Dartanion Bridge in the Deep Forest?” Ridley asked.

Zarlut looked at Feezy who gave a small nod.

“Yerr,” Zarlut said.

“He’s the one who supplied all the steel that built it. Mr Winterforth is a very generous man but also very impatient. We need to speak to your man BilBil and we’ve already been delayed enough.” Ridley then fished around in his cavernous pockets and withdrew a crumpled rectangular writing pad.

“Pen,” he said, snapping his fingers at Feezy.

The HobGoblin handed over his pen and then both Goblins watched with curiosity as Ridley scratched away on the pad. When he was satisfied, he stood up and tore the paper from the pad and held it out to Zarlut.

“Wots that?”

“A bankers draft for 100 grams of gold. For your troubles.”

Zarlut’s beady little eyes lit up with greed. He snatched the note from Ridley’s fingers and carefully studied it before thrusting it at Feezy who read it intently.

“How do we know this is legitimate?” Feezy asked Ridley.

“This is a waste of time,” Nairo said, stepping forward and holding out her hand for the note. “Let’s go, I’ve heard there’s another tinker in this market we can speak to.”

“Cordry? He’s a fool, you’d be wasting yer time!” Zarlut said.

“Like you’re wasting our time right now?”

Zarlut looked from Nairo, to the note, to Feezy, and then back to Nairo. He eyed them for an uncomfortable length of time before making an abrupt clicking noise in his cavernous throat. Suddenly, a dark sanguine form wriggled from under a mass of oily blankets in the corner. A little weasel like creature, jet black and oily as everything else, shot past Nairo’s feet and up Zarlut’s body till it was perched on his shoulder. Zarlut whispered something to the creature and then it disappeared, scurrying through a small crack in the wall.

“Hope that wasn’t just the lunch order,” Ridley muttered as he lit a smoke.

Zarlut said nothing.

“Uhh, Mr Zarlut I’m afraid I’m going to need you to pick that right hand back up for me please,” Nairo said, her words polite but her tone was steely.

Zarlut paused and looked at Nairo curiously. His eyes met gaze. He didn’t move. Nairo’s dark piercing eyes never flinched. A broad, but empty, smile broke out across Zarlut’s chubby face as he slowly raised his empty right hand and placed it back next to his left hand on the countertop.

Ridley smirked and they all remained in acidic silence.

Finally, the little creature scrabbled back through the crack squeaking excitedly. Zarlut bent his ear to listen and then satisfied, he fed the creature a little desiccated nut. It grabbed its reward with its sharp little teeth and vanished back to its hovel of rags. Zarlut looked up and gave them a nasty grin. He lifted the countertop flap and beckoned them to follow.

Ridley looked at Nairo who gestured with her hand for him to go first. Ridley cautiously followed Zarlut through a door behind the counter which led to a hallway that sloped down to another door.

Zarlut pushed open the door and strode through into a dimly lit room.

Nairo followed behind Ridley and felt like she had stepped into a different world. The room was dimly lit with pockets of ephemeral light flowing sporadically around the room, a gentle hum filled her ears and there was a strong smell of honey tinged with something caustic.

At the centre of the room, sitting behind a circular desk littered with every manner of shrapnel and tool she could imagine, was a heavily armoured figure, wearing a helmet complete with thick visor and a heavy lead lined apron.

“BilBil!” Zarlut barked, making the figure jump.

“Oh dear… what? Who’s there?” Came the echoey response as the figure looked around in bewilderment.

“It’s me, Zarlut!” The big Goblin rapped his knuckles on the heavy helmet before yanking it off none too gently. “You got people here wanting to see you. This BilBil the mad tinker,” Zarlut said to them like a shop owner proudly displaying his wares.

BilBil blinked at them, his sweaty face tinted pink with heat. He was surprisingly young, or at least boyish looking, with plump cheeks and a shock of bristly orange hair under his nose. He had bright green eyes and a perfectly smooth egg shaped head.

“Oh… hello,” BilBil said awkwardly, looking back down at his work as if he hoped they would all disappear when he looked back up.

“They want to talk to you,” Zarlut growled at him. “Turn the damned lights on.”

BilBil sighed and put down his tools again. He touched a finger to something on his desk and glowstones began to gently hum into life all around the workshop.

“Theys got questions and you gonna answer them,” Zarlut said to BilBil, poking a thick digit at him.

“Oh, okay. Will it take long? I’m at a delicate point…”

“We’ll try not to take up too much of your time Mr BilBil,” Nairo said, her notepad already in hand and a disarming smile on her face.

“Oh okay. Yes sure. Umm… yes that would be okay.” He muttered more to himself than to Nairo and then began fussing with his tools again, laying them down in a specific way.

“Okay, you ask,” Zarlut said to them.

“Not the way it works, big man.” Ridley crossed his arms and then nodded his head towards the door. “We want to talk to the tinker alone.”

Zarlut chewed on this for a moment, frowned deeply, then shrugged.

“No problem, boss.” Zarlut turned and shambled back through the door, pulling it shut behind him.

Ridley listened carefully, waiting until he heard the second door slam shut.

“BilBil is it?” Ridley asked the tinker.

“Yes.”

“Got anything to drink?”

Nairo sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Oh umm… I don’t… perhaps…” BilBil wandered away to the back of the workshop, muttering to himself.

“This guy seems a bit…” Ridley whispered as he circled the side of his head with his finger.

Nairo nodded and looked around the workshop. Every countertop and corner was crammed with a menagerie of unfamiliar tools and machinery that were a mix between heavy duty factory grade machines and delicate little tools more at home surrounded by velvet in a clockmaker’s workshop.

BilBil came shuffled back into the light holding a dust green bottle. He moved gingerly, his body the shape of a creature that spent too many hours hunched over a worktop. He looked up for a fleeting second at Ridley and then looked away before holding up the bottle to him.

“Err… thanks,” Ridley said, taking the bottle from him and blowing the dust from it. “Got a bottle opener?”

BilBil shook his head. Ridley shrugged and popped the bottle open on the corner of the worktop making BilBil shudder.

“Please be careful,” BilBil said.

He pulled a pair of round spectacles out of his breast pocket. After a surreptitious wipe, he put them on and blinked heavily a few times and then stared at his work top, wringing his hands in uncomfortable silence.

“Umm… Mr BilBil, my name is Sally and this is Ridley, we’ve come to gather some information for a project we’re working on,” Nairo began.

BilBil nodded, his eyes fixed firmly on his tools.

“We heard you’re an expert on the field of magical items?” Nairo tried again.

This time BilBil gave a nervous little laugh but said nothing.

Nairo looked at Ridley who shrugged.

“What you working on here?” Ridley asked him, pointing to the stone set up in vice on his worktop.

“This?” BilBil squeaked. “Oh umm… it’s a faulty lightshard.” He tapped the stone and they saw it blink into life before flickering a few times and dying again. “Shoddy workmanship really, all the etchings have already worn smooth.”

“Riiighhtttt…” Ridley said, nodding with the air of a man who had no idea what was being said but was determined that wouldn’t stop him. “Well we’ve actually come about a stone, a bit bigger than this one though. We need to know about Diamonds.”

A little glimmer of interest flickered in BilBil’s eyes.

“What do you want to know?” he asked.

Ridley opened his mouth then paused and looked at Nairo.

“Ermm… yeah what do I want to know?”

“You don't know?” Nairo asked him.

“Well obviously I do… but you wrote it down didn't you?”

Nairo gave him a wry smile and flicked open her pad.

“Mr BilBil.”

“Just BilBil,” he shuffled awkwardly, still staring at the defective glowstone.

“BilBil we need to know about Active Diamonds, specifically ones that could be used to harm a creature or even kill them.”

BilBil’s eyes widened and he shook his head.

“I’m sorry Miss, you’ve come to the wrong creature… I don't know how to…” he stammered nervously.

“Relax BilBil, we ain't asking you to make one. Just give use the beginner’s guide on these rocks.”

“Well… umm… that’s a very… big topic.” BilBil wrung his hands again and shuffled from one foot to the other.

“Any information you could give us would be a massive help,” Nairo said to him with a reassuring smile.

“Perhaps if I knew some specifics I could help. I really don’t know very much about that sort of...”

“How do these stupid little rocks glow?” Ridley interjected. He picked up one of the gently glowing shards and twirled it between his fingers.

“ Oh yes, they are wonderful aren’t they?” BilBil’s face lit up with a broad smile as he gazed at the stone. His shoulders relaxed as he stared into the warm light of the stone. “They’re fascinating. And I am always amazed how they have become a permanent fixture of our lives yet so few actually understand them. Take this for example,” he fished a stone from under his workstation and laid it on the desktop. It was some sort of ruby, judging by its colour, it was rough cut and cracked in several places.

“Heating stone?” Ridley asked and BilBil nodded excitedly.

“Exactly. The magic is so finely tuned and instantly responsive! If you just hold it in your hands for a few seconds it heats up. Put it in a pot and you’ll have boiling water in three minutes. A feat unimaginable for a Human a few hundred years ago and now… so simple a child could do it.”

“Looks knackered,” Ridley said, poking the stone with a finger.

“Yes, these lower quality stones struggle with consistent use and often crack. Most people simply throw it away and buy another.”

“And they put another gold coin in the Elves' pocket,” Ridley said.

BilBil looked up for a second at Ridley and gave a furtive nod.

“But all you really have to do is reconnect the pathway and reestablish the pattern of Runes.”

“Pathway?” Ridley said.

“Runes?” Nairo added.

BilBil looked between them both and rubbed his shiny head.

“I see,” was all he said. “Well, there’s only so much I can tell you, true understanding of magick and the powers of nature and time, these are well beyond most creatures and especially Humans.”

“I don’t know BilBil, you seem to know an awful lot for a Human,” Nairo said with an encouraging smile.

“Well yes… I do know a few things,” BilBil said, the colour rising in his already ruddy cheeks.

“So what are these runes?” Nairo pushed.

“Well you see, a famous Elder Elf thousands of years ago figured out how to capture magick into spells and incantations. Previously, Elves had relied on a form of prayer to the natural elements of Nature, with sporadic results. Once Runes were established, the Elves were able to conjure magick at will and the possibilities became endless. This would be around the same time as the first Goblin Wars,” he rattled off dryly.

“Fascinating,” Ridley yawned.

“Quiet, I’m taking notes. Please go on BilBil.”

“Well… after…” BilBil stopped and thought deeply. “Many centuries, Elves perfected the art of Runes. They captured all the millions of possibilities of magic into physical scripts.”

“Like a language?” Nairo asked.

“No!” BilBil snorted and gave a goofy little laugh. “Well… in the most rudimentary sense yes, but think of it more like a science. It was like chemistry in which you could combine various Runes, like chemicals, to create a surprising effect. The possibilities were endless. But this made the Elves complacent. They realised they could capture chains of Runes in Diamonds and similar precious stones so that they could essentially replicate magick without the effort of actually learning how to do the requisite magick. As the generations passed, Elves stopped learning how to create magick, instead they followed the Runes of their predecessors. Today, they by and large don't even understand the magick. They simply know how to replicate the Runes. Now the majesty of magick has been reduced down to slapping some shoddy etchings on a stone, package and market it, and sell sell sell,” BilBil’s voice took on a bitter edge here.

“Why Diamonds?” Nairo asked, tearing BilBil away from the dark path his mind had wandered down.

BilBil owlishly as if he was trying to process the question.

“Not just Diamonds. Most precious stones have the capacity to contain magick, it’s just that Diamonds are the best due to their refractive nature, the chain of Runes simply bounces around in there endlessly. All you have to do is have a Chain that dictates how it operates and you’ve essentially got pocket magick that anyone can walk around with and use.”

“What do these Runes look like?” Ridley asked, lighting a smoke.

“Aah… well technically it would be illegal for anyone unlicenced to possess any literature or copies of the Codex,” BilBil intoned mechanically.

“Of course,” Ridley agreed. “So you got one?”

“I wish!” BilBil exclaimed, letting out another honking laugh. “There are only a handful of copies of complete Codex in existence!” BilBil stopped and then looked at them both. “I do have… something,” he whispered conspiratorially.

“Can we see it?” Nairo asked.

BilBil’s eyes flicked around the workshop. He seemed torn between the need for secrecy and the desire to show off. After a brief internal battle, he nodded and shuffled over to a locked draw at his desk. He pulled a key on a chain from under his heavy robes and opened the drawer before carefully withdrawing a hefty leather bound volume. Delicately, he unwrapped it and placed it down on the desk, pulling his desk light closer so they could see. It was heavy and black with gold lettering that had been damaged. The pages were fire curled and smoke blackened in places.

“This is a partially complete Codex,” he whispered reverentially, running a gentle finger across the cover. “Apparently Goblin raiders killed an Elvish party and took it with everything else. Initially they tried to burn it, but this section remained intact.” Delicately, he opened the fire damaged book. Inside were pages of dense Elvish script punctuated with symbols that stood out as particularly angular with heavy lines in comparison to the fluid cursive font of the Elvish language.

“It’s amazing,” Nairo breathed.

“What is it?,” Ridley asked bluntly.

“This is the key to magick!” BilBil hissed at him, a light shining deep in his eyes.

“So you could make magick following this... manual?”

“Oh goodness no. Never,” BilBil sat up and snapped the hefty tome shut. “Us Humans have no magick in our blood. Gnomes are the next most magical creatures, Fairies, Pixies, even Goblins have more magick than Humans. Even with all the correct incantations and Runes we would never be able to conjure so much as a puff of smoke,” BilBil said forlornly. “But, what I can do is trace the pattern of these Runes to be able to fix damaged magical items,” he gestured to the sporadically glowing rocks on his work table.

“How?” Nairo asked, genuinely curious by now.

“Well you see, Runes can be etched across the surface of a stone, that’s how they specify the function of it.”

“But not how they put magick in it in the first place?” Nairo asked, her eyebrows drawn in concentration as she absorbed everything BilBil said.

“Correct.” BilBil smiled warmly at her for the first time. “They would have already been imbued with magical energy, the Runes simply bind those infinite possibilities to a small handful or even single function. The rocks get hot. They light up. We can heal flesh wounds. It is all the same source magick but only a single expression of that magick.”

“Fascinating,” Nairo breathed.

“Isn’t it!” BilBil said eagerly.

“Mmm,” Ridley agreed. He had busied himself in a corner of the workshop, poking a pointy machine with intense interest.

“And you can do that?” Nairo said.

BilBil blushed awkwardly and cleared his throat twice.

“Well… I’m somewhat adept.”

“How is it done?” Nairo asked eagerly. “Can you show me?”

“Oh yes… umm… of course.” BilBil smiled like a moustached puppy at Nairo.

“Back to the interesting stuff,” Ridley said as he sauntered back over to the bench. “Go on BB, show us what you got.”

BilBil snapped out his reverie and busied himself around the bench collecting his various tools. He cleared the workspace under the enormous microscope with a thorough flick off his hand, and laid down a velvet pad. Handling one of the stones with a native deftness, he placed it delicately on the velvet. He drew down the microscope and held his finger over the rim of the glass till it suddenly exploded in bright white light.

“Woah!” Ridley exclaimed, blinking owlishly.

“My own invention. Dozens of light shards all activated by one mother stone…”

“Yeah it's lovely, bit of warning next time,” Ridley said, rubbing his eyes.

Nairo bumped Ridley out of the way as she bent closer to the stone.

“I can’t see any Runes,” she said, peering at the stone.

“Ahh no not yet,” BilBil replied, reaching under his desk and producing a bucket. “First, we need sodium chloride.”

“What?” Ridley said.

“Salt,” Nairo hissed at him.

“You’re not planning on eating it, are you?” Ridley asked, only to be elbowed in the ribs by Nairo.

“No, we need to give the stone a saltbath.” Bilbil picked the stone up and dropped it in the bucket and rubbed the salt against the stone.

“That’s just salt?” Nairo asked.

“Yes, regular table salt,” BilBil answered, dusting a few remaining grains of salt from the surface of the stone.

Ridley dipped his finger in the bucket and then rubbed it across his gums.

“That’s salt alright,” he said grimacing and spitting.

“I hope you don't ever have to investigate a sewage works,” Nairo said drily.

BilBil sat the stone back down on the velvet.

“You see… right there, beginning to come up like a scar.”

In front of them chains of symbols began to appear across the surface of the diamond. They ran in around the circumference of the stone, tiny and delicate, forming a neat little ring.

“This is better work than you usually see, but it’s still subpar,” BilBil explained.

With a pair of thick tweezers he rotated the stone in circles and under the magnifying glass so they could see that the ring of runes was jagged and incomplete in parts.

“Do you see how the spaces between runes isn’t uniform and the sizes of the runes change?” BilBil pointed with a thin, sharp, tool at the runes. “That’s a sign of mass production. Nine times out of ten these stones fail because of rushed work like this. They’re pumping out thousands a day and it’s shocking how many of these stones aren’t fit for sale. ”

“How do they make so many?”

“Slaves,” Ridley answered.

BilBil nodded in agreement and elaborated.

“You only need a touch of magick at this stage in production, so rumour is, they’ve got factories full of thousands of Cut Pixies working round the clock day and night etching these cheap stones for wholesale to the cities.”

“Cut Pixies?”

“Pixies that have had their connection to their kind severed,” Bilbil explained.

“Oh how awful, isn’t that their only way of communicating?” Nairo asked.

“Naa they’re like ants, the connection’s how they receive their orders,” Ridley said.

“Not quite,” Bilbil corrected. “Pixie’s have always been the most vulnerable of all the creatures, even more so than Humans, you see they’re all connected to one single life and experience. They see, feel and hear everything from just one Pixie. No matter how far they go they’re always connected to their home, a clearing with one great tree over a thousand foot high, where the Pixie spends all day feeding, laughing and playing. It’s why they make such good labour, in their minds they’re still frolicking free in the grassland of their homes.”

“And the Elves took advantage,” Ridley said.

“Almost, it's a quid pro quo,” Bilbil answered. “As you could imagine, Pixie’s make pretty easy prey and they would get massacred by the great monsters of the forests in their thousands during hunting seasons. The Ancient Elves offered the Pixies protection and a guarantee that their orchards would forever remain unblemished and in return the Pixie would attend to the needs of the Elves. It’s a deal as old as records themselves.”

“Why do they cut them from that connection?” Nairo said horrified.

“Hard to keep something like a Diamond factory top secret with a creature that could potentially beam all they know to countless other Pixies. Cut the connection and minimise exposure.” Ridley answered.

“That’s so cruel.”

“Believe me, you don't know what these Elves would do to keep costs down and profits sky high. They have us all hooked on these stones and now we can't imagine our lives without them.” The blood rose in BilBil’s cheeks and there was suddenly fire in his eyes. “Who controls the production? The distribution? The mining of precious stones?"

“Elves,” Ridley spat as if he preferred the taste of salt from earlier.

“The worst thing is most of what they do now is outsourced,” BilBil continued his expression hardening with every new crime. “Pixies and Fayries do all of their grunt work. They’re the ones who maintain and produce pretty much everything. The Elves just sit around and get fat and keep us all buying. Then some little independent, such as myself, happens to crack their little code and help a few people out by repairing their own property instead of them having to buy new. So, you harass him, lock him up and stop him anyway you can! Is that fair?”

Even though he was not talking directly to her, Nairo felt a flush rise in her face, her badge suddenly feeling heavy in her pocket.

“No… that isn't fair BilBil,” she said sadly.

“Don’t worry, brother, you answer our questions today and I promise you at least some pointy eared bastard somewhere is gonna suffer because of it,” Ridley said, patting him on the shoulder. BilBil nodded and mopped his brow.

“You were showing us how you would repair the stone?” Nairo said.

“Ahh yes, right…” BilBil cleared his throat and picked his tools back up.

“‘Fraid time is short and I’m getting bored,” Ridley said, waving them off. “Let’s get to the nitty gritty BB.” Ridley swung himself down on the stool and hunched over the workstation. “I need to know about big stones, a Diamond that could blow a Goblin’s head almost clean off.”

“Oh my!” BilBil’s eyes widened in surprise. “I don’t meddle with…”

“I know, you only fix broken HotRocks and Glowstones, but if Elves are making things like this then I know, you would know.”

BilBil hesitated for a moment and then gave a small shrug.

“I will tell you as much as I know, but please remember, not everything I know is fact.”

“Yeah yeah… better than half of my information sources at least,” Ridley said. “So things like this exist?”

“Yes, but the number of them is dwindling. Elves don't make powerful objects like that anymore, any still in existence are relics from past generations.”

“And does that sound like something one of these Diamonds could do?” Nairo asked. “You know, take off a Goblin’s head?”

“Oh yes… if it was designed to do so I suppose,” BilBil pondered.

“And what about blowing up the whole city?” Ridley asked.

“Well… yes… if it was designed to. These ancient artefacts are unbelievably powerful but they are limited by their own designs. Maybe it would help if you could tell me how big this Diamond you're looking for is?”

“Woah, who said we was looking for a Diamond?” Ridley asked, narrowing his eyes.

“Oh, I just assumed because…”

“You know what happens when you assume?” Ridley said airily.

BilBil nodded apologetically.

“But let’s say, hypothetically, a Diamond the size of a fist.”

BilBil’s eyes widened and his bristly moustache twitched.

“Diamonds like that don’t exist, at least not in the commercial market.”

“Well where do they exist?”

“In Elvish vaults surrounded by guards, I’d imagine. Diamonds that size can hold unimaginable power. In fact, hold on one moment.” He hopped off his stool and wandered over to a rusted filing cabinet in the corner of the room. “Here we go,” BilBil laid out a large glossy paged book down in front of them. “This is the Arctus Bridge, one of a kind, a marvel of ancient magick.”

He was pointing to a large double page drawing of a bridge that seemed to shimmer in the evening sun. Except, it wasn’t shimmering in the light…

“What is it made of?” Nairo asked, inspecting the image closely.

“Pure magickal force. That entire bridge, for centuries, has carried passengers into the Elvish heartland and it is made of nothing corporeal.”

“I’d heard about it, but I’ve never seen an image so clear of it.”

Ridley, who was forever unimpressed by all things magick, interrupted their reverie.

“Diamond did that?” he asked.

“A pair on either side. The charm has never failed. That is the type of power Diamonds that size contain.”

“I thought Diamonds that size are incredibly temperamental?” Nairo said.

“No, not these ones. They’re safely Chained with a specific Rune function. However, a Diamond of that size that could kill a man? That is very dangerous indeed.” BilBil said, nodding gravely.

“What do you mean?” Ridley said.

“Well, there’s a reason why Diamonds are rarely used in battle. The only Diamonds that could emit enough energy in a concentrated blast to kill or destroy has to be Unchained…”

“Unchained?”

“The Chain has been broken, obviously,” Nairo said.

“Not quite,” BilBil corrected. “It has deliberately been left unformed, that way it can contain the magickal energy but still be able to release it. But these Diamonds, they need constant maintenance and upkeep. Temperature, light exposure, humidity, even a sharp jolt and they could go off!”

“What happens if one isn't being maintained properly?” Ridley asked.

BilBil didn't respond. Instead, he started to leaf through the book.

“This,” he pointed a finger at a drawing of a crater of dirt. “There used to be a city there.”

Ridley raised an eyebrow and looked at Nairo, who’s face had darkened.

“Anyone who would dabble in this kind of Diamond trade is someone to be avoided,” BilBil warned.

“Yeah… I think you’re right,” Ridley said, looking at Nairo with concern in his eyes. “Well, cheers for the drink BB,” Ridley drained his beer, belched, stood up and offered BilBil his hand.

“Oh yes… you’re welcome.” BilBil sheepishly shook his hand. “Thank you for coming. This has been… nice.”

He gave them a small smile and then returned to his stone, forgetting them instantly.

Nairo followed Ridley out of the room in pensieve silence. Zarlut was still sitting where they had left him earlier. He looked up as they entered and he flashed them a broad thick lipped smile.

“All good now Mister and Miss?” he asked congenially.

“Yes, all good thank you,” Nairo replied with a small smile.

“We need to get moving,” Ridley said shortly. “Cabstand round here?”

“Back the way you come. Outside the market you can find one,” Zarlut said, stroking the chin of his ferret creature. “Come back any time.”

Ridley and Nairo exited the shop hastily.

Zarlut watched them go and then turned to Feezy.

“Send a missive to the Circle, Sam’sun Uncle will desire to learn this,” he growled in Kittei.

“What was it about older brother Zarlut?” Feezy replied.

“Elvish Magick,” Zarlut spat the words like an ancient curse.

Feezy shuddered and pulled a fresh sheath of paper towards himself.

*

“Ridley, hold on!” Nairo cried out as she hobbled to keep up with the PI.

“We gotta move, Sarge! You heard BilBil, this whole city could go up at any moment! We gotta get those damn subpoenas and find out what these Elves are up to!” He shot off towards the cab stand while Nairo grimaced in pain but hobbled doggedly in his wake.

“Oi! Get us to Police HQ lively! She’ll pay double!” Ridley yelled at a cabbie as he barreled into the cab.

“No I won’t!”