The Sword of Retribution

Charlie - Part 6

     When the meal was finished, they remained at the table and chatted amiably about any subject that came to mind, wanting to put off as long as possible the moment when they would have to meet the slaver again. The catering staff bustled around busily, clearing the tables and stacking up the chairs, and soon theirs was the only table left. A pair of impatient looking matronly women came to stand over them, clearing their throats noisily and giving other not so subtle hints that it was time for them to leave so that they could finish cleaning up and go home, and eventually the questers got the message, deciding they couldn’t put it off any longer. They stood reluctantly, and the women immediately grabbed their chairs before they could change their minds, piling them up on top of the table and running around noisily with mops and buckets.

     The questers and the trogs ambled slowly down the corridor towards the room where they’d left the slaver, but when they arrived the creature was gone. “Where is it?” asked Matthew, more in relief than curiosity. “I thought it was going to wait for us.”

     “Maybe it’s also gone to get some, er, food,” ventured Jerry nervously. “I mean, it’s also got to eat, hasn’t it? What if it got hungry while we were gone?”

     A nervous silence fell, each of them remembering the graphic description Thomas had given of the creature’s feeding habits. “Does it have to be an, er, intelligent creature?” asked Matthew timidly after a while. “I mean, could it live on animals, livestock, that sort of thing?”

     “I suppose so,” replied Thomas hopefully. “They're supposed to like their prey alive, though. I suppose the Fellowship might have offered it a sheep or something. Yes, that must be it, it’s probably gone to where it had a sheep or a goat waiting for it, that’s all. Nothing to worry about.”

     The others cheered up, relieved by this plausible explanation for the creatures’ absence and the comforting theory regarding its current source of nourishment, until Lirenna raised another point. “What’s it going to eat while we’re below ground?” she asked. “We can’t very well take a flock of sheep with us through a maze of underground caverns.”

     “Maybe it only has to feed every few days,” suggested Thomas. “Maybe it won’t need to feed again until it reaches the Underworld, where there are plenty of wild animals roaming around. We’ll have to ask it when it gets back.”

     “You’ll have to ask it, you mean,” corrected Jerry. “It was your idea to have a slaver with us, so you can do all the talking to it.”

     “All right, I’ll ask it,” said Thomas in annoyance. “Don’t worry, you needn’t have anything to do with it, I’ll do all the talking.”

     “Do you think you could ask it to talk only to you as well?” asked Lirenna. “I hate its thoughts crawling around inside my head, like slimy worms. It makes me want to… Ugh!” She shuddered in disgust.

     “Me too,” agreed Matthew emphatically. “I never knew that telepathy could be so thoroughly unpleasant.”

     “Okay, I’ll ask it,” agreed Thomas. “What about the rest of you?”

     “No, I want to hear everything it says,” said Shaun firmly. “I wouldn’t like to be shut out of things like that.”

     “Me too,” agreed Jerry. “I don’t trust it, and besides, I think some of the things it has to say might be quite interesting.”

     Thomas smiled. “Beginning to lose some of your reservations, are you?” he asked.

     “Not at all,” replied the nome. “I still think it’s a stupid risk to travel with such a dangerous creature, but one of my teachers in the orphanage told me to always look for the positive aspects of a bad situation. There always is one, apparently, so if I absolutely have to endure this creature’s presence, I might as well try to see it as a learning experience.”