The Silken Key

Chapter 5

Buying the hobbit a drink at The Whiskered Squid was supposed to have been a friendly gesture. Detlef hadn't realised that the mugs of beer were so tall that the halfling could scarcely look over it. Whenever he did see her face, however, she made it very obvious that she was not happy to be there.

"Not a beer drinker, then?" Detlef asked after the silence dragged on for too long. The tavern was slightly quieter than it had been earlier and he could just about hear himself speak.

"I don't know," the hobbit replied sharply. "I've never had it before. Does it taste as bad as it smells?"

Detlef glanced sideways at Maddy. The two of them nodded in agreement. "Yeah, pretty much."

The hobbit rolled her eyes then peered down at the drink. She leaned a little closer, sniffed and shuddered.

Detlef couldn't work out what seemed especially strange about her. Aside from the fact that she'd been standing in a field for hours supposedly communicating with ancient beings from another dimension, it had been so long since he'd seen a hobbit in Alresbay. Even after the war ended, halflings tended to consider the town bad luck and avoided it.

"I'm sorry we had to drag you away," Detlef said politely. "But it was someone's field. How much longer would you have stayed out there anyway?"

"As long as it would have taken," was the halfling's unhelpful answer.

"Alright." Detlef bit his lip, trying to hold his patience and think of another way of asking. "How long did 'it' take you the last time you did 'it'?"

The hobbit scowled again. Clearly scowling was one of her special skills. "You haven't got a clue about the things I am dealing with. I am on a journey you cannot even begin to comprehend."

"A journey, you say?" That word had Detlef interested. "Where to, exactly?"

The hobbit sighed. "East. Across the sea. That's all I know at the moment."

"You're going to the Misty Continent?" Maddy asked. He seemed interested too, all of a sudden, even though he was distracted trying to flick a wasp that had landed in his beer. "And you were in that field...waiting for further instructions?"

"Something like that," the hobbit muttered, slumping miserably into her chair.

Detlef took a deep breath and tapped his hands on the table with a determined cheerfulness. "Let's try this a different way. My name is Detlef Slatesworn. My companion here is Mediocrates the Not-very-good, but he prefers Maddy."

"Pleased to meet you." Maddy waved with one hand, still pinching at the surface of his drink with the other to get at the wasp.

"What is your name?" Detlef asked.

The halfling tilted her nose up and looked away. "I've spent my life contemplating realms beyond this world. Paltry names and labels mean nothing to me."

"Alright then." Detlef forced himself to keep smiling. "Well, we have to call you something, so...how about Shorty McPint-size?"

The hobbit snapped her gaze onto Detlef, her lips growing so thin they almost disappeared. After seething for a moment, she sighed again. "Fine. My name is Tabitha Fallowfield."

"There we go." Detlef grinned, holding his hands out in triumph. Suddenly, his smile dropped and he tilted his head curiously. "Wait...did you say Fallowfield?"

"Yes. Why?"

Detlef gawped in disbelief as the memories of that fateful night so long ago came flooding back. "You're the girl who went missing! How old was I...my goodness, it must have been twenty years ago!"