Free Jak Barley-Private Inquisitor and the Case of the Seven Dwarves by Dan Ehl Page A

exasperating my headache.
    I tried not imagining myself covered with scavenging reptiles, the tiny creatures swiftly reducing my body to a few meatless bones dangling in the breeze like some frightful wind chime. My private inquisitor instructors said cool heads prevail, but I doubted any of them had found themselves in similar circumstances. If they did, the solution to such a conundrum was never imparted during class.
    I was given another view of the lizards, still excitedly scampering about. A shadow crossing the rock abruptly sent them scrambling for the safety of cracks and fissures. Now what, I wondered bleakly, though believing the situation could not get much worse. I was wrong.
    The slow rotation brought me face-to-face with a harpy. She was straining to hover in one spot as she examined me.
    Some harpies, such as that one, can be quite beautiful from the waist up, though they all have sullen, loathsome dispositions. They are known to eat men who will not have sex with them, which must be quite often since their feathered bodies reek of nest droppings and are infested with a number of ravenous, parasitical creatures. It was from this adventure that I came to meet Osyani, but that is another story.
    If I made it out alive from that ordeal, I had thought, maybe I would go into teaching. At least the new crop of private inquisitors would have an instructor who had done more than learn the profession from scrolls and parchments.

 
    Chapter Six

    I was brought back to reality--that my own current career did not hold a bright promise--by more grit falling from the tunnel. I could hear the muffled sound of a body sliding down the shaft. I gripped the sword pommel tighter and drew in a deep breath just as the torch sputtered again and the passage went black.
    "Turd!" I swore by reflex then clamped my mouth shut. The noise in the airshaft stopped. Maybe I had offended the spider's sensibilities by swearing and it was deciding to leave.
    "Turd? Turd?"
    I was as surprised by this unexpected reply as I would have been by the spider dropping into the middle of the floor in an evening gown. Had the beasts learned human speech?
    There are dwarf varieties of Moravian vampire roaches that can mimic human speech. My aunt had one as a pet. Its chitin was of beautiful burnished blues and greens. It would chirp such obscenities from its wire cage that my mother would not let me visit her sister when I was of a young and impressionable age. Thinking back, I believe "turd" was part of its repertoire. She got rid of the cursing roach after it escaped its cage one night and almost sucked her dry.
    "You heard me. 'Turd.' Now drop down here where I can skewer you on my blade, beast of the sewers," I challenged with more bravado than I felt, but it was either fight or collapse from cramped muscles.
    In response to my challenge, a beam miraculously erupted from the shaft and cast a pool of light at my feet. I almost shouted 'turd' once more.
    "Jak Barley, you have been a very bad lad," an eerie voice wailed from the shaft. "You have been prideful and conceited. You are short and you don't treat your friends with the respect they deserve."
    I growled under my breath and gripped my sword even tighter. A shower of debris fell, followed by the author of the voice. I swung my blade at the figure now crouching in front of me, though I turned the blade broadside at the last minute. He easily turned it with his own sword.
    "I am near to beating you soundly with this blade," I finally managed to croak.
    "What? Aren't you glad to see me?" laughed Lorenzo. "After all, I was battling the Reverian Assassins while you were off dining with the dwarves."
    "How do you know I was eating with the dwarves?" I demanded, still irritated at his prank.
    "It is the secret sauerkraut recipe on you breath. I gave the dwarves my mother's special Alsace recipe that has the cabbage simmering in a dry Riesling wine."
    I snorted, by now used to his nonsensical answers. "Where