Dinadan Noir XVI: Concluded

Gilgal drummed his fingers on the stack of papers sitting in the middle of his desk. He thumbed through them, then looked up at the satyr sitting across from him. “Who’d you bribe to do the paperwork for you?”

I resisted the urge to smile. “Did them myself, sir. Although Carnely gave me some pointers and thought it’d be funny if I tried to copy his ‘handwriting.’”

Gilgal wasn’t amused. “Krysospas did some of these himself. Your imitations are decent. Might fool a junior officer into doing a donut run. But not me.”

“Carnely played a major part in sorting things out, sir. I didn’t see anything wrong with letting him contribute to those parts of the paperwork. There was a lot to write-up.”

“Indeed. Twelve, no, thirteen corpses. A pair of fires, one of which consumed over a hundred thousand gold’s worth of mushroom spirits. Breaking and entering, assault, disturbing the peace…and you didn’t report any of it until you dragged Krysospas into your hare-brained project.”

“You’re the one who said you didn’t want to see me back here.”

“I also told you to stay out of sentinel business, that you were removed from active duty, and that it would mean your badge if you got yourself into trouble again.”

“Come on, sir. I got you Whale Oil McKay and Upal Toth, solid on murder and extortion. And resisting arrest. Never mind the fallout in Borales.”

Gilgal grunted. “That’s something, but not much compared to the trouble you’ve made.”

“There’s this, too.” I pulled something of my satchel. The jade monkey was the only tangible gain I had managed in the whole affair.

“You should know better than to talk to me about selling evidence to raise funds.”

“Not for selling.” I looked in vain for a bit of clear space on Gilgal’s desk. Shrugging with a nonchalance I didn’t entirely feel, I hefted the ugly chunk of jade…and threw it straight at the floor. It shattered, revealing a set of tightly-bound scrolls. I hid my relief, plucked them from the wreckage, and passed them over to the chief. “Have a look. It’s about the Igneous operations, isn’t it.”

Gilgal unrolled the first scroll, revealing tiny, careful script. His eyes darted back forth across the page. “Yes. Smuggler’s routes, safe houses, gambling dens, reports on personnel…”

“Aagren was getting ready to make a power play, go over to the Borales wing. I suspect this was going to be his admission fee. He must have been nervous, to give this to Arbonne. I don’t think she knew what it was. She was going to pay me with it. Showed it to Schrau. Took him about two seconds to figure out it was a fake, and only a third to guess it was hollow.”

“And you’ve waited until now to open it because…?”

“Because I didn’t figure out what was in it until last night. Something McKay said about Aagren not holding up his end of the deal. I’d already figured that Aagren had hit the ceiling in the Igneous wing, so he either had to knock off his boss—and who likes their chances against somebody like Gero—or grab a spot in a more dynamic environment. Even before I got caught up in it, the Family set-up in Borales was a mess. Coming in with a bunch of information and some muscle would have set Aagren right up near the top, made him an uncle for sure, maybe given him enough heft to take over as grandfather. But he would’ve needed somebody inside in Borales, somebody who’d give him some protection from Gero. Toth and McKay fit the bill, although I think he over-estimated their abilities and their desire to play nice with him.”

Gilgal was still poring over the scrolls. “We’d need half the thief-takers in the Retroverse, but we could shut the Family down in Igneous. Set them back years.”

I nodded. “That’s worth the trouble, yeah?”

“Look, Whistler. You’re not a detective. You’ve already proven that you can’t do undercover work, and with you leading the bard guild, that’ll be even less feasible. Everything you get involved with seems to end in a pile of bodies, a mess of reports and reparations, and a headache for me. I’m not going to take your badge. I’d like to, but I’m not. I’m not even going to heap more warnings on you, because you’ve proven deaf to them. If you ever decide to make a career in this guild, there’s a place for you. For now, I want you in here once a ten-day. If a deputy asks for your help, you give it. You take no cases for yourself without my permission or Foil’s. Anything you do out in the field, you take a fully-trained sentinel with you. Clear?”

“Limpid as an elf-maid’s eyes.”

“I asked you a question.”

“Aye, Gilgal. It’s clear.”

“Then sweep up your mess and get the hell out of my office.”