Free Looking for Mrs Dextrose by Nick Griffiths

I drove you here! And I’ve stayed far longer than I intended.”
    “Thirst you do sunthing for us.”
    “We had a deal and I kept my side of it.”
    “Thirst you do sunthing for us.”
    I sighed. “What?”
    He opened the cloak once again, reached in and pulled out a wooden cup. “This sklecial drink I nake thor ny grother. You take it to hin for nee.”
    So he’d made a ‘special drink’ for his brother, whom he had not hours earlier asked me to murder. He must have considered me stupid. Yet… if I refused, let him know I
was onto him, would I ever get to see the map?
    Could I not just pretend to hand over the dubious brew? It might work.
    “OK,” I said. “But you have to show me the map first.”
    The shaman wagged his finger and the boy cackled. “Thirst you do sunthing for us.”
    Fuck it. I had a plan. “Alright. Give me the drink.”
    It was hard to tell what colour the liquid was, in the depths of the dark receptacle, but it smelled rank, like rotten vegetables. Now, how to pretend to give it to the other shaman without
arousing this one’s suspicions?
    I started walking, cradling the cup, which felt like death. There were other wooden cups, similar in design to this one, on other tables. If I could somehow swap them without the Shaman
noticing…
    With my back shielding my hands from him, I dropped the cup onto the ground and kicked it under a table, in one fluid motion picking up an unused wooden cup. I didn’t dare turn around to
see whether the Shaman had noticed.
    The other shaman had seen me coming. As I confronted him, he stood. His fish-suit had begun to rot and a few of the fish had fallen off, exposing portions of his body. It had also begun to smell
bad.
    I handed him the cup. “This is from your brother,” I said, uncertain whether he would even understand me.
    He did something unexpected. He smiled. Not a friendly smile, granted, more pitying, but a smile nonetheless. As he did so, the legs on the beetle painted on his face moved, as if the creature
were walking.
    He took the cup, drank the contents down in one, threw it to the ground, pushed me away and sat down. Was he supposed to clutch his throat, gasping, stagger around a bit and die in agony? Or was
the poison more subtle than that? I hoped so. And if so, how long did I have before the Shaman realised I had switched cups?
    I turned to walk back. The Shaman was laughing, the gloating Machiavellian. At least he couldn’t have noticed the swap.
    Sleight of hand. Too easy. Anyone could play the magic game.

 

    Gdgi beckoned me towards him as I returned to our table. His wife had gone walkabout, mingling with the hoi-polloi, and I took her seat next to him, warily eyeing the dead
snake coiled on his head.
    “First I must apologise to you, Pilsbury,” he said, chewing some berries open-mouthed.
    “Oh really? What for?”
    “The test. I made it up. We do not really ask guests to perform such things.”
    I felt embarrassed.
    “Please do not feel embarrassed. We have fooled guests far cleverer than you.” Suddenly he looked concerned. “I hope I have not offended you.”
    How to reassure him? “We had a television show in England, called Beadle’s About . The host played pranks on people.”
    “Yes?”
    “He was called Jeremy Beadle… The host, I mean.”
    Gdgi shrugged. “Why is this interesting?”
    It was a fair point. “He had a withered hand?”
    It was the death of the art of conversation.
    Gamely, Gdgi ploughed on. “Tell me, Pilsbury, which lands have you travelled to?”
    That was an easier one, and I told him of my previous adventures, England to Mlwlw, embellishing only slightly. Gdgi raised an eyebrow here and there, interjected with the odd “My
goodness!” and looked suitably impressed.
    “What do you know?” he asked, when I had finished.
    Odd question, I thought. “How do you mean?”
    “You have been to all these places. What have you learned?”
    Blimey. I’d never really thought in those