“Such gallantry, sir.”
“Well heck, I done shot ya already, I figure we can skip the pleasantries. Violence Jones,
by the way.”
“Son of Thrug,” Dill said suddenly. “Your ill -gotten Key will not work in my
establishment. The doors are warded here.”
The dwarf with the tomahawks was jiggering around with our front door. Obviously I
was keeping half an eye on the guy, but I reckoned he was just trying to slip out, which suited
me fine. I guess he was up to something else.
“Craven filth,” said the red - beard. “You would slink away from honored combat?”
“I have no quarrel with these long -ears and wingless mongrels. You and I can settle our
affairs another day.”
“Nay!” said Vissary -whateve r. “This ends here and now, for justice and serenity.”
I gotta tell ya, folks. They’re an odd bunch, these mystics, that’s for sure. But I love the
way these people talk.
*
I am Gar. I serve the Red One with fealty, and have done throughout these many Yules —
nigh on two hundred now. But I grow old. I have no mate, no offspring; I seek only to live out
my days in comfort ’neath the Easterly crags of the polar sea. And so, when I heard tell that some
fairy lass was offering raw diamond for the Key, I bided my time and I filched it from the Claus.
’Tisn’t easy, see, to slip between the worlds. Over all the vasty globe, there are only
nineteen Gates, all Cherub- held. If they decide you oughtn’t pass, then pass you surely won’t.
But the one we serve forged an item, long and long ago, with dwarvish skill and angelic power.
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