Chapter 10 #2
“The Dervish. Of nowhere in particular.” Technically he supposed he lived in the sword, but “The Dervish of the Sword” sounded like the title of an unbearably twee wonder-tale.
Besides, it might lead to questions. Although he was pretty sure that Large Francis had seen him disappear, which meant that either the pillbug already had questions, or now thought that some humans simply vanished occasionally.
“I-see. Is-that-a-place-designation-or-an-indication-of-a-lack-of-permanent-habitation?”
“The second one.”
The pillbug shuffled along in silence for a few minutes. The Dervish had reverted to thinking that his boots were really not cut out for walking in mud when Large Francis said, “May-I-ask-you-a-question-friend-Dervish?”
“I suppose.”
“Earlier-I-observed-you-vanish-in-a-flash-of-light. Is-this-a-normal-behavior-for-your-people? I-had-not-read-of-such.”
And there it is. I knew it was too much to hope for that he’d missed that.
He turned his head and met Edmund’s gaze.
The scholar gave him a helpless shrug. Well, what did you expect?
He promised not to tell anyone without your permission, he didn’t promise to somehow stop people from noticing that you live in a sword.
“You can explain it to him,” the Dervish said with a deep sigh, and slowed so that the two went ahead of him. Dog Violet matched his pace. Sweetness grumbled.
The Dervish couldn’t help but overhear snatches of conversation from ahead, mostly from Edmund, while the music box made a low chattering hum.
“Yes, it’s a curse … yes, the daggers come with him.
Oh, hmm, I don’t know that? You could ask …
yes, the translation seems to grant him total fluency. I know! What book would you pick…?”
Ancestors help me, now there’s two of them. He looked over and saw Dog Violet’s ears swept forward and guessed that she could hear all of it.
“Sounds pretty sweet, knife-man,” the gnole said after a while. “Guessing it isn’t, though.”
“Not in the slightest.”
The gnole nodded. After a moment she said, “Probably like working for Sleeveless-humans. Free food, yeah, warm place to sleep, cook whatever you want, yeah?” She spat on the snow.
“Is that what happened? You went there to work?”
“Nah, knife-man. A gnole left burrow, went walking. Tired of burrow, tired of everything, kept walking. Days and days. Not going anywhere, just going, yeah?”
“I know exactly what that’s like.” The Dervish had done it himself more than once. On the first occasion, he’d ended up being hunted like a gazelle and on the last, he’d wound up a mercenary. You’d think I would have learned not to do that at some point.
“Most humans around here, they know gnoles, yeah? A gnole can go to house, trade, get food. A gnole is a rag-and-bone gnole, not a job-gnole, but can still work. A gnole digs lots of privy pits. All gnoles good at digging.” She held up her blunt clawed hands and swiped at the air.
The Dervish could imagine dirt being raked aside.
“Having dug my share of pits, I can imagine that people were happy to pay for that.” Mostly they’d been privies, since a mercenary troop could generate an unbelievable amount of shit. Occasionally they’d been graves.
“Yeah.” Dog Violet’s whiskers pricked forward.
The Dervish was starting to think that was the gnole equivalent of a nod.
“Saw fire at camp, went up to offer to dig. Humans ask if a gnole can cook.” She shrugged.
“A gnole can, a little. Said so. Next thing a gnole knows, Sleeveless-humans grab a gnole, lock a chain on, hit a gnole when a gnole starts yelling.” Dog Violet spat again.
Oddly enough, the notion of kidnapping a cook didn’t surprise the Dervish at all.
The quality of the food was the number one complaint in Sarkis’s company, even more than lack of whores and how much their feet hurt.
Occasionally the weather could edge it out, but only in extraordinary circumstances.
“How long were you there?”
“Since fall. Sleeveless-humans kill a lot of deer, rabbits, fish. A gnole isn’t good at cooking, really, but a gnole knows how to salt meat, knows that winter is coming.
Stupid humans would have starved, if not for a gnole.
” Dog Violet’s ears went briefly flat against her skull.
“Thought about it, but a gnole would starve too.”
“No chance to poison them, I suppose?”
“A gnole offers to forage for mushrooms, but Sleeveless-humans not that stupid.”
They walked in silence for a few moments, and then the Dervish found himself saying, “The third wielder of the sword was convinced that I was a great spirit-being that had been bound to the sword.” He couldn’t find a ready translation in his head for djinn, and it didn’t really matter.
“He thought he was a great hunter. He’d go out with arrows and attendants and shoot ducks.
Then he’d send me into the marsh to retrieve them.
He thought it impressed all his underlings, that he could use a magical spirit like a dog to bring back birds. ”
“Humans do things to not-human people, don’t think it counts.” The gnole considered this, then added, “Some humans, anyway.”
The Dervish nodded. He was surprised at himself that he’d told her about the third wielder.
Not the worst of them by any stretch. He’d never killed the Dervish or maimed him experimentally, or visited any particular torments on him.
But the humiliation of being ordered to fetch had festered under the Dervish’s skin for years, and even though it was such a minor hurt compared to all the others, saying it aloud was a strange relief.
Like being mortally wounded and finally having a blister drain.
You’re still bleeding to death but you didn’t realize how much the blister was annoying you.
“Friend-Dervish? May-I-ask-another-question?”
Perhaps draining the blister had left him in a better mood, because the Dervish said, “Go ahead.”
“Friend-Edmund-said-that-you-were-forced-to-intervene-in-a-circumcision-and-I-am-curious-as-to-the-circumstances.”