Chapter One

The two of us were sharing a bench in the shade of the Temple of Calistria—ironically enough, the god of rogues.

“Never be looking at what ya be picking,” Loose Fingers Winny continued his discourse, “whether it be pocket, pouch, purse or rucksack. Ya also want a mark who looks to be easy goin’. They less likely to react when you ‘accidentally’ bump into them. Drunks are also easier.”

“Now watch there,” he said when nodding his head at a line of supplicants waiting to make their appeal in the Temple of Hygieia, the goddess of health. “A crowd like that makes for easy picking with the bumping and crowding. It be easier when there be two or three cut-purses working the marks. One can jostle them and while distracted, another can lift their purse.”

I gazed out across the Plaza of Deities. A quarter of the temples stood abandoned with the downfall of the Old Gods. Only younger divinities like my favorite, Ninkasi, the goddess of ale brewers, still drew devotees.

“Why ya wanting to hear all this,” my fellow patron of the King’s Wart Inn asked. “Being a ferret not pay enough?”

“That be private inquisitor,” I responded automatically to the flippant slang for my profession. “It be part of the required continuing education for renewing my PI license. Either this or dreaded fiscal forensics. Lucky for me, I have a new employee well-versed in the matter.”

“Well, I told ya all I—”

“Shush,” I interrupted Loose Fingers. “What do you see there?”

I pointed to a lean figure attired in the blue tunic of a courier. Clutching a flat box that spoke of documents, he was hurriedly cutting through a milling group of foreign pilgrims.

“Aye, ya spotted the trick. He be reaching unseen beneath the packet. Bet a hayphenning he took the fat one’s purse.”

“Gotta run,” I abruptly announced. “I owe you a week of ales.”

It was not that I recognized the ploy. It was the sneak thief who drew my attention. I briskly made my way across the square to follow the supposed courier, who quickly disappeared between two abandoned temples. I felt a chill and stopped midstep when realizing one of the boarded-up temples was that of Dorga, the Fish-Headed God of Death. Even knowing the corpulent divinity was no longer of this world did not slow my racing heart.

It be bad enough visiting the god’s main temple perched high above the Duburoake harbor, now the residence of the Witch Morganna. At least she had ridden the horrific edifice of the giant Dorga idol, sacrificial altar and torture room implements—all of which I do not have fond memories of.

I forced myself to continue to the back. A ten-foot gap was between the back of the temples and the wall enclosing the plaza. Rubble blocked the way to the left. Why me? Unless I wanted to give up the chase, the only option was to turn right and continue behind Dorga’s temple.

Tracks in the dirt showed the temple’s heavy bronze door had been recently opened. Just looking at its bas reliefs depicting sacrificial victims being… Never mind. If given a choice, I would rather jump into a pit full of elephant maggots than take another step into the vile confines of a Dorga temple. I am said to be prone to heavy sighing. Sometimes it be hard not to—as now.

The hinges remained well-oiled and the door quietly swung out. A stained-glass dome lent a sinister cast to the nave. Colorful shards of broken glass and ceiling plaster littered the floor. As I feared, a giant statue dominated the hall. The squatting idol had the lower body of a man, the drooping breasts of a very corpulent woman and the head of a carp.

A well-worn path through the litter disappeared behind the idol. As with layouts in other Dorga temples, a trap door was located at the back of the malevolent image. It would lead to crypts, dungeon cells and a chamber of horrors well supplied with instruments of torture.

I took a deep breath and made my way down the steps, silently cursing my quarry for leading me into this abysmal catacomb. A light flowing into the tunnel led to an open doorway.

Listening briefly to an ongoing conversation, I stepped into the room and barked, “What in Hades are you doing here?”

“Good to see you, too,” my friend Lorenzo Spasm cheerfully replied.

“See for yourself,” he added, waving his hand at a table strewn with thick scraps of parchment, quills and bottles of ink in assorted colors.

It was easy to see what he and the gnome were up to. The vellum, a fine grade of parchment made from calfskin, was used almost exclusively for identification credentials. A closer study of the table revealed IDs for the Kingdom of Glavendale and at least a half-dozen neighboring principalities and provinces.

“I have often wondered where you come up with so many fake identifications,” I said while shaking my head. “And let me guess, that pickpocketing was to secure an uncommon passage permit.”

“It be one from the floating island of Aeolia,” the gnome excitedly answered. “Been wanting to print ones up forever, but never knew what they looked like.”

I picked up a travel permit from Rum Island, a semiautonomous island in the Amnesian Isles.

“They still be the easy ones,” the gnome said. “Too many others now need a likeness sketched in the corner.”

I shook my head when examining some of the credentials. “Really? Mel Born, Sid Knee, Mycro Sawft, Chuckie Cheeze? Where do you come up with these names?”

“I’m hurt you so dismissively demean my family names. I hate to think what Grandpa Duncan Doenuts would say.”

“And why here?” I asked while waving my hand at the dank surroundings.

Lorenzo laughed. “What better place? Dorga may be gone, but his temples still creep out most people. Taggers don’t even want to graffiti them.”

If Lorenzo speaks in near gibberish, it be because he be from what he calls an alternate universe where magic does not exist.

“Parallel firmaments,” half-brother and alchemist Olmsted Aunderthorn exclaimed when told of Lorenzo’s origins. “Fjsten, a great metaphysicist, hypothesized such manifestations.”

I believe Lorenzo’s tale, since he has proven impervious to spells, and those thrown against him rebound upon the casters. Lanky and about six feet in height, he appears to be in his early fifties. Traces of grey can be seen in his shoulder-length hair and a black mustache hangs to his chin. It be his garb that most stands out—short-sleeved tunics with images of palm trees and topless women in skirts of grass.

“What brings you to the shopping mall of the gods?” Lorenzo asked. “Finally repenting after all those years of ugly inebriations and wretched overindulgence in vices frowned upon by the dour, dwarfish priests of your troubled childhood? I hear there is a special this week at the Temple of the Black Moon. Sacrifice two chickens for a soul cleansing.”

“Studying for a continuing education test tomorrow,” I answered, ignoring his usual prattle. “It deals with pickpocketing. Loose Fingers Winny was giving me tips.”

“Really? How interesting,” Lorenzo spoke as he walked behind me to where his sword and scabbard hung from the wall. “Still, Winny is rather amateurish.”

“What? Winny has been lifting purses for more than twenty years. I suppose you think you are…?” I stopped midsentence.

He smiled as our eyes met. I had to sigh. I reached down to find my belt pouch a handful of coins lighter.

“Time for the King’s Wart Inn,” Lorenzo announced. “Drinks are on me.”

I took in a deep breath once out of the temple.

“You dah ferret?” a piercing voice disturbed my savoring the bright daylight and air free of rot and dankness.

“That be…”

“Yah, yah,” the waist-high wizened priest cut me off. “Whatever. Ya him?”

“I am Jak Barley,” I huffed, “a licensed private inquisitor with the Glavendale Royal Ministry of Public Safety. Can I help you?”

The priest intensely regarded me—and I, him.

“Kulan!” I exclaimed, shocked at realizing the dwarfish priest was whom Lorenzo had just referenced.

“Humpf,” Kulan grunted. “Hear ya become the wastrel I always warned your mother of, bless her poor soul, ya would become.”

“And I see you shriveled even more,” I snapped back, “and still as foul-tempered. Well, I would like to say it was nice seeing you, but it was not. I am now off to consume vast amounts of the demon brew and carouse with fellow ne’re-do-wells and miscreants.”

“I need hire ya.”

“What?” Nothing could have shocked me more.

“Need ya to solve a kidnapping.”

“I, uh, a kidnapping?” I sputtered.

“Be ya deaf, too? That be what I said,” Kulan barked in the surly voice I dreaded for most of my childhood.

I knew I would later regret asking, “Who was kidnapped?”

“Algo.”

“Algo!?”

Lorenzo looked startled by my outburst, and I explained, “Algo, the demigod of pain and suffering.”

Turning back to Algo’s priest, I asked, “Just how does one abduct a demigod?”

Kulan looked about nervously. “We need talk more privately. Come to the temple.”

Kulan spun on his heels and walked away before I could protest. There was nothing to do but follow. As one would guess, a deity of pain and suffering appeals to a limited number of adherents. Both Algo’s flock and his lone temple are modest in size. His place of worship also lacks the architectural embellishments enjoyed by the more prosperous godly hangouts.

“Your mother is a follower of a demigod, the offspring of a god and human, devoted to pain and suffering?” Lorenzo whispered as we trailed Kulan across the plaza. “I can see why you chose a profession that provides for both.”

“It would not be if someone would quit involving me in such cases.”

That be no exaggeration. My friend and editor of The Weekly Tattler, Sergey Varvervane, has reported on a number of our cases involving vengeful mages, voracious piss dragons, irate assassins, cursed manuscripts and restless shades—most initiated by Lorenzo.

Why me? Still traumatized by descending into the bowels of Dorga’s temple, I was now being dragged back into the abode of a demigod that had made my juvenile years a nightmare. Though Algo was usually absent in either body or spirit, Kulan’s cruelty was ever present. At age fifteen, I swore never to set foot in the temple again.

“Quit your lollygagging,” Kulan sniped from the open doorway.

“With Algo gone, I could safely gut his priest,” I grumbled under my breath.

“I heard that.”

The interior seemed smaller than I remembered, with the same roughly sawed pews prone to splinters. The altar featured the all-too-familiar statue of Algo, which towered above us. With greased-back hair, glaring eyes and a twisted smirk, the idol held a whip similar to the one Kulan used for flogging unrepentant followers—many of whom were more than eager to feel the braided wyvern leather lash.

“Again,” I demanded impatiently, “how does one kidnap a demigod? Even the Witch Morganna would be powerless against a minor deity.”

“No,” I snapped when seeing his nervous fidgeting. “No way.”

“I will pay you all the meager tithings we have,” he broke down and pleaded.

“It could be all the gold beneath Three Witches Mountains,” I roughly answered, “and I would refuse. First, the world be better off without Algo, more a demon than demigod. And second, tell me the truth. You suspect another deity.”

His silence was answer enough.

“No way will I get involved in some unholy war,” I firmly declared.

“Your mother pleads for you to find our Lord,” he replied.

“You lie. We are only having this talk because you conveniently saw me crossing the plaza.

“I was about to travel to your office.”

“Well, make an appointment. I have more important things to do at the moment.”

“I believe your mother be already there and waits for you.”

~ * ~

“I know,” I groaned before Osyani could sound a warning. “Reschedule today’s appointments.”

She answered with a sympathetic smile.

No one would guess Osyani was hatched a harpy who bonded to me soon after breaking her shell. As a harpy, she matured magically fast. It be a long story involving an arduous trek through the Megaoulas Mountains. After being severely injured while protecting me, Osyani became fully human following a blood transfusion from Lorenzo Spasm.

Magic maintains the harpy form through the generations of human/harpy interbreeding. With Lorenzo being immune to magical spells, his blood released the human side of the young harpy. Osyani looks to me as a father figure—and Lorenzo as an uncle.

As for my mother, Hanala, where do I begin? My aunts and uncles claim she always had a bitter outlook on life. It did not help her being abandoned when pregnant with me.

The subject of my father had carried a mixture of emotions. It was a topic never discussed in my childhood home. Though my stepfather was kind enough, I knew he did not like dwelling upon my mother’s past relationship, no matter how brief it was. I grew up knowing I was a constant reminder of her “mistake.” What I learned about my real father was only what I could glean from my other half-siblings, and what they had been told in turn by their mothers.

Father was impartial when it came to pretty women, whether they be scullery maid or duke’s daughter. His whereabouts and state of health remained a mystery through my youth since many good fathers and husbands of the berg nourished ill feelings. Many believed he fled to a far realm to ply his talent among a less suspecting populace.

My Frajan sister, Jennair, be among the few half-siblings who know of our true parentage—King Garsten Stee Hragen. We discovered our father’s identity during a trip to the Glavendale capital of Stagsford. We met Baron Garsten Stee Hragen on the way through the Megaoulas Mountains. I did later play a part in his assuming the throne from the depraved King Kenton.

In other principalities, such birthing might be of some import, but given the formidable proclivity of our father’s youthful indulgences, it mattered little. So we kept silent on the riddle of our siring. I do like to believe my fleeting times with Garsten through some rather perilous ordeals endeared me to him. It was a card I preferred not to play unless faced with the direst of dangers.

All these thoughts played through my head as I paused before my inner office door. I had not seen my mother for almost twenty years. I took a deep breath and walked in.

The frail creature sitting before my desk was not the darkly looming figure from my childhood memories. Her thick black hair was now thinning and the grey of dirty snow. The eyes were still piercing, but now deeply sunken in a face more like a skull seeking to shed the last remaining scraps of flesh. What could one expect of a longtime supplicant of a god of pain and suffering?

Seeing her so brought back a rush of guilt. Had she taken the cruel religion as a form of self-punishment for having me? All I knew was once she became a follower of Algo, I couldn’t remain at home.

“Please,” I said with a wave of my hand as she began standing.

I didn’t speak again until safely sitting behind my desk. We silently contemplated each other until I spoke, “Kulan says Algo has been kidnapped.”

“Ya look well.”

“Ah, thank you,” I managed to answer, thrown off by what would be a normal conversation starter. It was not something to expect from my mother.

“I told Kulan you would refuse finding what has happened to Algo, but he had me come anyway.” Her voice of frost-covered iron was now weak and raspy.

“No, I will.”

I do not know who was more shocked, my mother or me. The words flew out of my mouth before hers were barely spoken. What have I done?

My mother looked shocked. “Why?”

“What? Why?”

“Yes, why?”

“I, uh…” I struggled to answer.

She waved her hand. “I know I was not a good mother. I often thought it be too late to make amends, especially now that I come asking for your help. I came prepared for your refusal.”

“But why?” I almost cried. “Why should you care about a deity who destroys his followers? Look what he has done to you.”

“You would not understand.”

“Try me. I am not a child anymore.”

She sadly smiled. “No, you are not. I will not go into why I became a devotee. This be not the time or place, but I will say why I never left the temple. Algo drains your life forces as pond leeches suck blood. It be gradual, but he will completely drain those who attempt to leave.”

“Osyani told me your mother be here. Am I intruding?”

I was caught off guard. “Ah…”

“Please, come in,” my mother answered for me. “I would meet my son’s intended.”

“Morgana, this be my mother, Hanala,” I awkwardly introduced the two.

When spoken of, most first think of the infamous mother witch, Morganna (two Ns). My Morgana, a recent graduate of the Kuu Academy of Mystical Arts and Witchcraft, be now a partner in our private inquisitor agency. I handle the more mundane cases of thievery and murder while she takes the lead in cases of the occult—though they are often not that easy to separate.

My mother rose and turned to greet Morgana. Both reached out to clasp hands.

“Oh-h-h,” Morgana gasped as their fingers touched. She stepped back to ask in a shaken voice, “What curse has befallen you? I, I have never felt such a dark force.”

“Algo,” I simply answered.

“I can see Jak has spoken little of me,” my mother said in reply to Morgana’s shock.

“I was at the Plasa of Deities…” I began recounting the morning’s events, beginning with my meeting Priest Kulan and ending with my mother’s revelations.

Morgana looked to me in complete confusion. “This be horrible. Not the kidnapping, but what be happening to your mother.”

The young witch began pacing as she continued, “What I felt was not that of a celestial manifestation, but of a demonic nature. How could this not be known?”

“Kulan orders we speak little of our order, unless to draw in new members. To go against this will draw Algo’s wrath.”

“I must see my mother, Morgana said. “There must be a way to help Hanala.”