the inquiry

“You really aren’t any fun,” Lorelei exhaled hot air onto his blade and began cleaning it.

Goren caught his breath. He was covered in long, bleeding cuts. His bones were bruised. He was tied to the same chair he had sat down in to tea, the previous day.

“I always thought that large people were more buoyant of spirit. You’ve very much disappointed me in this realm, Mr. Hargus.”

Goren spit. A piece of his tooth came out. He looked Lorelei in the face and spit again, just for spite.

Lorelei frowned and shook his head.

“Well perhaps you really don’t know anything.” Lorelei chuckled and was quickly overtaken with an unstoppable peal of laughter. “You really don’t know do you? How the portal works? Incredible. Now, if I were an accountant and worked in a wrecked, pathetic circus full of nothing but gnomish mediocrity and slime, I personally would take special interest in something apparently miraculous like a portal to a new dimension. But I suppose we are all born differently. I have my predilections and you have, well, you have your pies to focus on.”

Goren continued to focus on his painful breathing. With each breath, his ribs ached.

There was a knock on the door. Goren looked wildly at the door but Lorelei did not seem perturbed at all.

“Ah. There they are. At long last.” Lorelei spoke to Goren. “Sir, I have tired of you as a guest. You will be more useful to all of us in a slightly new capacity.”

Lorelei stuffed Goren’s mouth with rags. Then he turned to the door and opened it. It was Ernt Rauchebaum and a very large lever boy who towered in the door frame. They looked in at Goren. They both seemed a bit nervous.

“Nothing to worry about,” Lorelei patted the larger boy on the back. “He’s secured up tight. Now take him down to the mess and we’ll begin the inquiry tomorrow morning. Mr. Hargus has many, many crimes he needs to account for.”

“Ernt?” Goren tried to say, muffled through the rags.

With a knitted brow, Ernt approached Goren, his former employer. A rapid unfolding of memories exchanged between the two of them. There was nothing to say.

Ernt and the lever boy took either side of Goren and hoisted him out of  the chair. Goren moaned, in pain. They dragged him out of the house and into the solid, green night.