“Come on, it’s not going to be that hard!”

  Oak groaned. “First rule of doing anything worth a damn. Nothing is ever easy, girl.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I get it,” Sadia said. She sat on Oak’s bed, bouncing her feet impatiently. “We just have to find out who murdered those babies, and this Halit Dushaj will pay our way across the Hundred Kingdoms to Chadash Merkavah.”

  “That is the plan.” Ur-Namma pulled out his carving knife and got to work, whittling a piece of wood. It was starting to resemble a goose. “And technically, we are already in the Hundred Kingdoms, girl.”

  A goose. Out of all the beautiful creatures inhabiting Creation, he carves a goose. If the elf ain’t cracked in the head, I will eat my boots.

  They had gathered in Oak’s and Geezer’s room on the second floor of the inn to plan their next course of action. Sadia’s and Ur-Namma’s rooms were down the same hallway. The elf had talked to Vjollca, and the innkeeper had been kind enough to place them all close to each other.

  The room was not large, and it felt all the smaller with three people and a hellhound inside of it, but Oak had planned more dangerous ventures in less friendly conditions. Time and the steps of countless feet had worn down the planks and stripped off the paint from the wooden floor, but Vjollca’s obsession with cleanliness meant that he could not find a speck of dust. He and Geezer had taken over the far corner of the room, and sat down on the rickety floorboards to make room for Ur-Namma and Sadia.

  Things could have been far worse. At least they had a roof over their heads.

  Why a goose, though?

  “Oh, please, Ur-Namma.” Sadia blew a raspberry. “You know what I meant.”

  “Yeah. Shove it, Ur-Namma.” Oak grinned and massaged the top of Geezer's head. It was good to gang up on the old elf.

  “Let’s focus, please.” Ur-Namma tsked and frowned with disapproval. “We face quite a difficult conundrum. I doubt we will find much of anything when we examine the scene of the crime.”

  Geezer woofed and leaned closer to Oak, which made Sadia twitch in fright. The girl snapped her gaze away from the hellhound and scooted to the other end of the bed, away from the dog.

  Our own little scaredy-cat. Oak didn’t draw attention to Sadia’s fear. Instead, he pulled the focus of the conversation back to himself.

  “It’s a good thing you have me along, since you are apparently both hopeless when it comes to the fine art of problem solving,” he said, goading the elf to argue with him.

  “Oh? The savage has a plan,” Ur-Namma said with a mocking voice and lifted his gaze away from his whittling. “Do tell. How are you going to figure out who broke a ward anchor days after the deed was done?”

  “Who said I was?” Oak stroked his beard. His lips twitched, forming a little mischievous smile. “I intend to cheat, misdirect and bamboozle.”

  Ur-Namma and Sadia listened, as Oak explained his plan, in three parts. The more he explained, the more the pair nodded, slowly coming around to his idea. Oak felt quite proud of it. It was not everyday he thought of something smart.

  Sadia cocked her head at him, clearly startled by the fact his plan did not involve immediately punching someone in the face. That would happen later. All in due time.

  “You know what, northerner?” Ur-Namma said, fingers clasped and carving knife forgotten, along with that blasted wooden goose. “As distraught as I am to say this, your plan just might work.”

  “Of course it will work. It’s my plan, after all,” Oak said. “We better start moving while we still have daylight to burn.”

  He got up from the floor, but did not stretch his stiff muscles. He wanted to, but there was no space for it in the tiny room. The top of his head almost skimmed the ceiling as is.

  Why does every building have to be built for little people? More importantly, why is everyone else so bloody short? Did they not eat their vegetables as a child?

  “Hang on a moment.” Sadia got up from the bed and crossed her arms. “You still haven’t told me why we are in such a hurry to get to Chadash Merkavah.”

  Oak and Ur-Namma looked at each other and ignored Sadia’s question out of silent agreement.

  “Hey!”

  ***

  By the bloody Chariot. How did she pull it off?

  One thing was for sure. Sadia had not done it, and the hellhound would never do such a thing of his own accord. That left only one possible culprit.

  Oak had not noticed it while inside the inn, but Geezer’s black fur was so clean it glistened in the sunlight. Somehow, Vjollca had given Geezer a bath. He could not begin to guess how the little innkeeper had wrestled the hellhound into a tub, nor how she had kept the dog in the water long enough to wash him, but wash him she had.

  Can’t fault the woman’s bravery. Or her stubbornness. Hells, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone so committed to cleanliness in my life.

  A speck of dirt was a speck too much for their contentious innkeeper, no matter on whose skin or fur that speck resided. Oak felt a measure of respect and gratitude towards Vjollca. Respect, because it was truly admirable to stick to your principles in such an uncompromising manner. Gratitude, because now he didn't have to wash the hound himself. Truly, customer service in Vjollca’s inn was a step above the competition.

  I guess a woman under her own roof really is a god.

  “Here we are,” Ur-Namma muttered. “Does everyone remember their role?”

  “Yep.”

  “Yes.”

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “Woof.”

  The town nursery resembled a temple, with its domed roof and columns flanking the entrance, but that was where the commonalities ended. Unlike most temples Oak had laid his eyes on, the nursery did not have an air of the beyond to it. As above, so below. The temples raised by the worshipers of demons and angels reached for something beyond this world while the nursery had been built with an earthly function in mind; to safeguard the lives of those taking their first breaths in Creation from the horrors that roamed the Waking Dream.

  The builders of this monument to all people’s desire to protect their young had painted their creation in soft pastel colors of green and brown. It was like the earth’s bosom, if the land only had one breast. Oak squinted until he saw double.

  Yeah, I have an inkling that the designer was also thinking about a pair of tits. Might be best to keep this observation to myself though, considering the somber circumstances.

  Two days ago, someone had come here with murder on their mind and succeeded.

  A pair of large ward anchors stood profoundly on the corners of the nursery. Since these two ward stones were intact, the baby murderer had undoubtedly broken one of the other two at the back of the building.

  The people who built this place had clearly never planned for the possibility that anyone would purposefully seek to break the wards of the nursery. Oak couldn’t really blame them. A nursery was not a defensible location. They had probably thought that if an army sacked the town, it would not make a lick of difference whether the ward stones were outside or inside the building. In that, they had been correct.

  They just had not accounted for the type of malice needed to kill a neighbour’s child in cold blood. Oak knew such malice all too well. It churned in the deep recesses of his mind, always waiting for a crack in his armor to present itself. Bloody fingers lovingly clutched the handles of blades. Carcasses hanging on hooks and a charnel pit unending, stretching beyond space and time.

  Despite the sweltering heat, Oak felt cold, and a shiver passed through his flesh. Below him, the Butcher waited with patience unending. That was not a comforting thought.

  “Let’s have a chat with the midwives, shall we?” he said, trying to focus his thoughts on something else than the cloying, delightful images summoned up by his sick, unconscious mind. The death of a child. A tragedy. A symphony of despair. Dread and wrath without equal. “They might remember something useful.”

  It will also give time for the word of our arrival to spread.

  From the corner of his eye, Oak could see the head of an old woman peeking out of the window of a nearby two-story building. Please, let the gossip fly.

  “Can’t hurt, though I doubt we will learn anything useful,” Ur-Namma said and traipsed towards the doors of the nursery.

  Oak signaled for Geezer to wait outside and the dog laid down on the steps of the nursery without complaint. He did not know how the midwives might react to someone bringing an animal inside their domain, and he did not want to risk upsetting them. The plan required them to present a specific story to the people around them and at this point of the con, they could not allow any deviations from the script.

  By evening, Ur-Namma had to be the talk of the town if they wanted to catch the killer. Keeping the story as simple as possible would make that easier to accomplish. Luckily, Geezer had always enjoyed basking in the sun. The hellhound would be more than pleased to lounge around while they worked.

  The double doors opened with nary a sound and the three of them walked into the nursery. Oak loomed tall behind Ur-Namma, and Sadia followed the two of them like a silent ghost, trying not to draw any attention to herself. Thanks to the Ears of Amdusias, Oak could tell she was staring at the ground like a shy toddler.

  The girl is trying a bit too hard to seem uninteresting, but I doubt it will matter when we start the show.

  A woman in her mid-thirties dressed in blue robes stood waiting for them in the hall. She had a kind, round face and bags under her brown eyes. Other than her, the place looked deserted, which made sense. Why would anyone stay in a nursery with their newborn if the wards were not functional? That kind of defeated the entire purpose of a town nursery.

  Even the soft rugs, loveseats, and the walls painted in the colors of a serene sunset could not chase away the sense of sorrow hanging over the hall. Without the hustle and bustle of new parents and the staff of the nursery, all the clever attempts to make the space inviting and calming just felt sad.

  “Oh, come on in. Mr Dushaj sent word you would be coming to perform an investigation,” the midwife said. Her voice was hoarse. Oak could tell she had shed plenty of tears in the last two days. “I am Behare of clan Darwish.”

  “A pleasure to meet you. I am Ur-Namma of the Tribe of Shara. The man behind me is called Oak and the lovely young lady goes by the name Sadia Al-Sharekh.”

  “A pleasure, elder.”

  “I will not waste your time, if that is okay?” Ur-Namma asked. “I imagine the past few days have been a trying ordeal, and I would hate to keep you longer than necessary.”

  Behare bowed. “No need to rush on my account. If there is anything I can do that might help bring those responsible to light, I would gladly offer my assistance.”

  Oak let Ur-Namma take the lead and stood back while the elf questioned the woman about the events of that fateful night. He was here to play the role of dumb muscle, working for a master theurgist. Not a hard role to play when he looked the part. People tended to imagine that huge, muscular men were a bit dim in the head by default, so he merely had to reinforce their expectations. And loom. He was a generational talent at looming over people's shoulders.

  It must have something to do with fairness, or some other such nonsense. As if the Mother had formed us all out of equal amounts of clay, and some of us got more brains while others got more brawn. Luckily for me, Creation is not fair.

  It was the exact opposite. What fairness could be found in a forest fire? In the merciless heat of the desert, or the icy winds of the northern mountains? In the murder of a child? No. Unfairness was the name of the game.

  The midwife couldn’t offer much to the investigation, but she revealed one important detail. Unlike everyone else in the nursery that night, she had been on duty and heard a banging noise outside. By the time she had lit a lantern, grabbed a cloak and circled the building to figure out what was going on, the culprits were long gone and the worst had come to pass.

  Culprits.

  At least two people, maybe more, had been there that night. Oak was sure of it. The midwife hadn’t even had time to run back inside the nursery to warn the families before a poltergeist had swooped in through the crack in the wards and dined on the minds of two infants. The child of a seamstress and the firstborn of a young couple from the Ferhati family. Both families had slept in rooms right by the broken ward anchor.

  Someone had lured or brought a poltergeist to the edge of the nursery’s wards and then broken them.

  For a moment, Oak entertained the thought that the entire angle with the Ferhati family was just a brilliant smokescreen to hide that the real target had been the poor seamstress and her child, but he abandoned the idea in short order. It just made no sense to him.

  “It was horrible. Utter madness, I tell you,” Behare said and shuddered. “Thank the Cherubim that Mirela was there that night. She dove into the Dream and slew the monster.”

  “Mirela?” Ur-Namma asked.

  “Mirela of the clan Carcani. One of our midwives. She is an experienced Dream Walker.”

  “Ah. Where could we find her, if we wished to ask her some questions about the nature of the poltergeist?

  Behare’s brows furrowed, and she rubbed her tired eyes. “Mirela took the death of the infants hard. Her clan has a manor near the docks, and I believe she is resting there for the time being. If you must, you can question her, but she already told me that there was nothing special about the poltergeist. It was a beast of the Dream, like any other.”

  A possible lead to look into.

  “We will not trouble her without cause, I assure you,” Ur-Namma said. The old elf clasped his hands together. “Could you show us the rooms where the infants died? After that, we just need to examine the broken ward anchor, and we will be out of your hair.”

  “Of course. This way.” Behare waved them to follow her.

  Oak let a small smile grace his face. Sadia had done well so far. The girl had stayed quiet, just like they had discussed, and drawn no attention to herself. Soon, it would be her time to shine.

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