Gathering of the Titans: The Tol Chronicles Book 2 (29 page)

The titan she was to meet and interview, Tartag, the former ambassador to Tragacanth, had been instrumental in reinstituting the titan government of Hellehoell and in gratitude the populace had elected him their first Chief Elder, or
Odinial
in Titanic. The new Odinial was the tallest titan in Hellehoell, owing principally to his status as the last of the Storm Titans. Goblins are large, substantial bipeds, but Selpla once more felt like a toddler staring up at the lean mountain of flesh and muscle that was Tartag.
The Prayer for Protection from the Rock Titans
kept running through her head.
...Pray, keep those titans far away
.

Far from the willfully destructive creature proscribed in the
Prayer
, however, Tartag was in contrast charming, congenial, and quite erudite. He remembered Selpla and took her on an abbreviated tour of the revitalized areas to date, pointing proudly to innovations and construction that improved upon the original designs. Titan society had obviously not stood still despite the long centums of exile. All along the tour Selpla marveled at the scale of everything. It was a doll house in reverse: the doorways were easily tall enough for a goblin standing on another’s shoulders to pass through, while the benches required a boost up for her to sit on them.

Tartag related to her the tale of Tol’s incarceration and escape from his own vantage point, providing details Tol himself had left out or skimmed over in his recitation. She smiled to herself over his courage and strong ethics. He was a good person through and through: very different and, at least to her, much more desirable than the shallow narcissists she had dated in the past. Selpla decided right then and there Tol was a keeper, if only she could make things work out that way. She was nothing if not ingenious when her heart was set on a goal.

For now, she had an interview to wrap up and a story to compose. As Tartag escorted her back to the entrance and her rental pram, which he had valet parked in his private garage, she promised him that she would do her part to set the minds of her readers at rest concerning the intentions of the titans in occupying Hellehoell. The titans’ eventual goal was, of course, for the semi-autonomous Hellehoell to be designated a full sovereign city-state; generating goodwill amongst their Tragacanthan landlords was an important step along this path.

As she watched Daludobris recede in her rearview mirrors, Selpla could not stop smiling. Not only was she deeply impressed by the titan city and its charismatic leader, she had come to one of the most important and far-reaching decisions in her life while there. She wasn’t yet sure of the best route to take to her destination, but for now she figured she’d just keep going the way she had been going and see how far that took her.

A couple of kilometers south of Fenurian lay the largest of the tent colonies supporting the labor population for the city’s massive rebuilding effort. Sensing a possible story centered on primitive living conditions for the camped laborers, Selpla took an unplanned detour to see for herself. She left her pram in an area she assessed as relatively secure on the perimeter and hiked in toward what seemed, based on the density and arrangement of tents, to be the center of the temporary community.

She was looking for someone to interview, or at least from whom to pick up useable tidbits concerning life in the construction labor camp. She didn’t expect to find any sort of civic leader, of course, but she did hope to encounter someone who’d been there since the beginning and could chronicle both the current and past history of the temporary settlement. As she stood scanning the area a half-ogre approached from the direction of her parked pram, flanked by two scruffy-looking companions: a hob and kobold.

“Welcome to New Fenurian, madam. May we help you?” asked half-ogre, with what appeared to Selpla a disingenuous flourish. Unlike the other two, he was dressed in fairly nice clothes, albeit out of style and in curious combination. Something about him didn’t seem quite right, but he was the only person who’d bothered to give her even a second glance so far. She had to start somewhere.

“Yes, thank you. I am a reporter from Goblinopolis and I’m looking for a little history on this labor camp. Do you think you might be able to provide that?”

“Sure, doll. We can provide whatever you want, for the right price.”

Selpla shook her head. “Sorry; not playing that game. If you don’t want to talk to me, I can find someone who will.”

The half-ogre shrugged. “Suit yourself. You get what you pay for out here. You give nothing, you get nothing.”

“Thanks for nothing,” she replied, walking away.

Sticker suddenly called after her.

“You said you were from Goblinopolis, right?”

Selpla stopped and turned back to him, hands on hips.

“That’s what I said, yes.”

“You know any cops there?”

Alarm bells were going off in her head. She chose her response carefully, picking her way through a thorny forest.

“I’m a reporter. You can’t be a reporter without occasionally interacting with edict enforcement.”

“I asked if you
knew
any cops. Personally.”

“One or two, I guess. What’s it to you?” She noticed that the hob and kobold had circled around behind her and she was now surrounded. She felt in her pocket for the reassuring mass of the comm unit Tol had given her. It had a panic button that used arcane heterodyning to broadcast a narrowly targeted signal to his own comm from practically anywhere on N’plork. It was priority linked using some form of entanglement she didn’t really understand, but her encounter with Ballop’ril had reassured her that it worked.

“What it is to me, doll, is a matter of...personal interest. You see, there is one particular cop in the capitol city I’d like to meet in person. His name is Tol. Ever heard of him?”

Selpla tried to hide her shock, but the tiny jerk she made at the mention of Tol’s name did not go unnoticed by Sticker. “Um, doesn’t sound familiar, but it’s possible. I don’t remember names unless I need to. If I haven’t written about them recently, I don’t usually remember them.”

Sticker regarded her for a moment before subtly motioning his companions away. “All right, doll. I’ll let you in on a secret. I have a present for Tol. A very special present.”

“Super. Give it to me and I’ll look him up and hand it over to him when I get back, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

Sticker laughed: an oily, grating series of exhalations. “It doesn’t work that way, doll. This present is not one you could carry; Tol will have to come and get it for himself.”

Selpla rolled her eyes. “Well, I’m sure if you contact the EE headquarters in Goblinopolis they can route your message to this Tol. Excuse me, but I have a job to do.” At that she turned on her heel and walked away. These creeps made her uncomfortable in a way she hadn’t felt in a long time. It took all of her self-control not to run away at full tilt. She decided that this story wasn’t worth the effort and headed back to her pram.

Sticker grinned as he watched her walking. “She knows Tol, I would say. Quite well, even. I think she may be useful.”

“You gonna stop her, boss?” asked Slag.

The half-ogre held up a small metal cylinder with two protruding wires.

“I already have.”

The drive mechanism in her pram would not engage. Selpla cursed her bad luck and sat there for a moment, collecting her wits. She used her comm unit to call the number for the pram rental firm posted on the dashboard, but all she heard was a recorded message. She banged her head against the steering wheel a couple of times, sighed, and got out to seek help.

Sticker and his goons walked up. “Having trouble, doll?”

Selpla glared at the half-ogre momentarily before switching her pitch-up. She sidled up to him seductively and twisted her finger in his plaid lapel. “Nothing a big strong fella like you can’t handle, I’m sure.”

Sticker was momentarily taken aback by her new tactics, but it’s hard to con a con artist and while Selpla was pretty convincing, she was dealing with a pro here. He decided to play along.

“I might be able to rescue you, doll. Depends on what you’re willing to give up in return.”

“What did you have in mind?” Selpla asked in reply, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively.

“We can discuss that later. First, let’s see if we can fix your pram.”

They all moved over to the stricken vehicle. Selpla sat in the driver’s seat with the window down. He pretended to be working on the engine, his hands hidden by the engine compartment access hatch lid. “Try it now.”

Selpla flipped the starter switch; nothing happened. Dross came over to stand next to her.

“Boss says to try pumping the throttle back and forth.”

She pushed in on the throttle pedal several times. “Like that?” As she turned her head back to look at the kobold, he slapped a pad soaked in some strong-smelling chemical across her face, covering her nose and mouth snugly. She struggled briefly against it before her world faded to black.

Sticker reinserted the missing part, slammed shut the access hatch, and pushed the unconscious Selpla over so that he could sit in the driver’s seat. Dross and Slag got into the back and they all drove away.

in which a dastardly crime is horribly botched

Tol sat at his desk reading the latest EE dispatches in some irritation. He had hurried back from Lumbos and abbreviated his post-mission debrief with Aspet only to discover that Selpla was in Hellehoell again. He knew she had a job to do, of course, but they hadn’t been together much since before his accidental voyage to Port Jool and he was feeling the urge something fierce. He flipped over to the Ferroc Norda section of the dispatch log, a section he usually didn’t bother to read, solely because that’s where Selpla was.

The first item listed caught his eye. An armored dray loaded with currency had been brazenly stolen from in front of a money- changer’s office. Witnesses saw at least one unfamiliar kobold and hobgoblin in the area, but no one actually came forward to report observing the crime in progress. Tol shrugged and wished local EE well. Not his problem.

As the day wore on he expected to hear from Selpla. He tried calling her once, but got no answer. That wasn’t particularly worrisome: if she was somewhere in the depths of Hellehoell the only way she’d be reachable was via arcane mode. She may or may not have that enabled on her comm unit at the moment. He went back to writing reports and tried not to think of her. It was a hopeless task. When quitting time rolled around and he still had not heard from Selpla, Tol contacted the South Fenurian EE desk sergeant.

“Hey Grelko, this is Tol in Goblinopolis. Yeah, it’s been a long time. Look, I’m trying to track down an errant reporter who rented a pram there and drove out to that titan city. Her name is Selpla and she should be either on the carriage or waiting for it by now, but I can’t contact her. Can you find out if any of your guys has seen her? Of course it’s official EE business. Call me back at this number. Thanks.”

He slapped the comm unit down on the desk and sat there staring out an ornate window at the bustling courtyard of the Justice Center below. He shouldn’t feel this way but he did, and the only person who could make him stop feeling this way was Selpla. He got up and paced the imported Nerrian rug covering the parqueted hardwood floors of his office suite. He’d never quite made adjustment to the splendor of his current work environment; one wall was covered with some of the worn and faded artifacts of his years in Sebacea. Smack dab in the middle of that wall was Selpla’s nicely-framed photo.

Finally the comm unit buzzed.

“Tol here. Hey, Grelko. Whatta ya mean, you can’t find her? She didn’t turn in her rented pram? Did you check with the rail line? She was supposed to be on the evening carriage to Goblinopolis. She never boarded? Thanks. That isn’t good. I’m on the way.”

Tol was in no mood to be pleasant or negotiate. He walked into the carriage station and cut into the front of a lengthy queue, ignoring the glares and complaints of the patrons.

“Private carriage to Fenurian,” he said to the clerk, showing his Crimson Knight creds, “Priority one.”

The clerk started to say something about no available carriages, but Tol’s expression dissuaded him. “Um, I’ll find you something as soon as I can.” Tol just stared at him, to the point where the clerk could not concentrate on anything else. He picked up a comm and dispatched one of the reserve engines with a single carriage. “Track four-A,” he said to Tol.

Tol nodded his nominal satisfaction and walked briskly away. The clerk became aware of his own profuse perspiration and wiped it before turning back to the next customer in line. Some of the patrons glared angrily at Tol, but a few recognized him and their expressions were more akin to awe and respect than irritation. Tol didn’t give a wrat’s backside at that moment what anyone felt. He just wanted to get to Selpla.

He pushed the carriage engineer to take the machine to its limits. They rode down the rails as fast the carriage would realistically take them in the quickest voyage ever undertaken from Goblinopolis to Fenurian. Tol leapt from the carriage before they had even come to a complete halt and hit the platform running. He jumped in an EE vehicle that he’d called ahead to have waiting for him and sped off toward Selpla’s last confirmed location in Hellehoell.

Hellehoell was actually east-northeast of Fenurian, but the only navigable approach required heading south from the city before turning east and then north. A few kilometers north of the left turn Tol passed a large assemblage of tents. It occurred to him that someone there might have seen Selpla’s rental pram. He pulled over and started talking to people.

Most of the laborers were unwilling to speak at first, but Tol had many years of experience in loosening reluctant tongues. After half an hour he’d established beyond reasonable doubt that the pram had entered the tent city but had not come out. Ipso facto, it and most probably Selpla were still here somewhere. He would find her if he had to dismantle the camp tent by tent.