by James Brian King

Dear Einar,
I apologize for not writing. I know I promised I would let you know of my every move, to help keep me out of trouble and all that, but I didn't get into trouble so I did not want to burden you. Except, now I am in trouble -- someone is trying to kill me and I swear I don't know why! (Which means it's not my fault.) I know you're thinking I must have swindled someone or stolen something, but I didn't. I swear I don't know why -- oh, I already wrote that. Well, anyway, please come! I desperately await your arrival. Unless you come and protect me I'm a dead man, er, halfling! You can find me at the Tavern of the Golden Horn, in Foresthaven. Please come quick. (You will come, won't you?)
Rumrik.

Einar refolded the parchment that had come to him in Royal City by way of the king's post riders -- a very expensive way to send a message. That alone made Einar suspicious. What employment would earn the little halfling thief -- Einar amended his thoughts: Rumrik had promised to retire from his previous career and live an honest, scam-free, thieving-free life, which should have kept him out of trouble. Einar didn't actually think such a feat was possible, but, as the king's hand, he felt an obligation to allow the halfling to prove his failings... or, perhaps, prove he could succeed? He shook his head. Naw, that was hardly likely to happen. As long as he had known Rumrik (which was long enough for Einar to suffer embarrassment a number of times), trouble had clung to the little sneak like wet to water.

Well, Rumrik did beg, and appeared to think he had covered the probing questions Einar would have put to him had the request come in person. And Einar was, after all, the king's hand, or, rather, one of ten (the king's fingers, as the joke went, was so old that it long ago ceased to elicit any humor). As such, he was free to pursue any investigation and enforce the law where and how he chose within the realm of his king. He just hoped Rumrik wouldn't embarrass him this time; there were only so many twists, bends, and blatant breaks of the law he could overlook and avoid arresting the halfling sneak, er, citizen, er... well, whatever the little runt proved to be this time.

* * * *

Foresthaven was aptly named; a trading city placed smack dab in the middle of nowhere, or, rather, in the middle of the wilderness a long way from anywhere else. But the city happened to straddle the crossroads of three major trade routes that came and went to the far off trade centers of the populated coastal plains and neighboring kingdoms beyond the Blue Mountains, so Foresthaven had become an important place of trade in between. As such, it was a good place to gain a wealthy living... or to steal it.

The Tavern of the Golden Horn proved to be a recently new establishment in the better part of town. The tavern was spacious with large windows and intricately carved double doors. A lot of gold would flow through this place. Einar figured Rumrik was doing okay if he had actually acquired employment here. He pushed through the doors and bumped into the protruding belly of a huge and ugly man with a large, bulbous nose with upturned nostrils and a slight cleft in his upper lip.

"We ain't open yit," the big man boomed, his nasty breath already tainted by cheap ale.

"I'm not looking for a drink. I'm looking for a halfling. I believe he works here."

The piggish-looking man shook his head and set his ample jowls to quivering. "Ain't got no halflings workin' here. Boss won't hire 'em, says they's nothin' but thieves and swindlers. Now," the big man thrust a bulky paw into Einar's shoulder, "if you gots any other business, come back in two hours. That's when we's open for the evenin'."

Einar stared unmoving at the discourteous oaf, considering whether he should elicit more respect by displaying the amulet of his authority or by using the flat of his broadsword, or perhaps by practicing his humble magical arts by attempting to tie the big man's shoe laces together. He was just deciding on the sword when a familiar, high-pitched voice came to him from behind the big man's massive thighs. "Einar, is that you? Ah, my old friend, it is you!"

Einar frowned at the fat man. "You said there were no halflings working here."

The fat man hooked a thumb behind him. "Him? He don't work here. He's the boss."

A familiar boyish face leaned out from behind the thick thighs, trying unsuccessfully to look up at the fat man's face. The halfling's expression was one of insult; Einar considered telling him that the large bouncer was most probably too stupid to have insulted his boss on purpose. Instead, with a voice tainted by unbelief, he said, "Is it true, Rumrik? Are you managing this facility?"

Rumrik's face transformed to a gleeful smile as he slapped at the big man's thigh to get him to move, but to no effect. Finally, he turned a baleful glare at the face he couldn't see and screeched, "Morto, move!"

Morto shifted his bulk to one side and Rumrik stepped to the front, all smiles again. "Manage it and more; I own it!"

* * * *

The tavern hadn't been open even an hour and already there were enough customers to fill more than half the building's capacity. "This tavern would have cost a fortune to build, Rumrik. What kind of scam did you run to get it?"

Rumrik, seated in a specially made high chair that placed him near Einar's eye level, offered Einar that so familiar pouty, hurt feelings look. "No scam, Einar. I'm a legitimate business man, er, halfling now."

"Out with it, Rumbut, and don't tell me any of your lies. Where did the money come from?"

Rumrik nodded smuggly, apparently very sure of his answer. "The answer is very simple. I have inves -- hey, don't call me that!" Rumrik glared fiercely, though the expression was more comical than threatening on the childish face of the halfling. "Even your mother didn't like it when you called me that!"

Einar slowly blinked his eyes and lifted his eye brows. "You were saying?"

Rumrik tightened both his lips and his brows in an angry/pouty look, but quickly got over his fit. "Investors, friend Einar, I have investors who are my business partners."

"Ah, that is propitious. These investors can vouch for your honesty."

"No, they can not. I mean, they're silent partners." Rumrik lifted his chin, a lofty look on his face. "These are important men and I am sworn not to divulge their identities. Otherwise, what good does it do them to be silent partners?"

Einar didn't believe the little runt, but some of the words from the code of his authority came to him: investigate thoroughly before passing judgement, lest ye condemn the innocent and free the guilty. He raised his hands before him and slapped them down on the table, trying to thrust his frustration away. "All right, Rumrik, who do you think wants to kill you."

Rumrik's eyes widened. "Not think, know -- don't know who, just that they want to. They've already tried! If Morto hadn't been there, I'd already be dead."

Einar shrugged his shoulders. "Well, just keep your body guard with you. Whatever petty feud you've fueled will go away in time -- assuming you've been honest and money isn't involved."

Rumrik's eyes widened further, his expression wordlessly blaring, Don't you get it? "You think Morto can protect me? I only escaped because Morto tripped and fell on the assassin. And Morto's still alive because the assassin stabbed him in the fried chicken -- well, four fried chickens. Morto was carrying them in a shoulder bag." Rumrik's youthful visage shifted to a faraway look. "Hmm. Come to think of it, that would have been food stolen from the tavern. Anyway, look at him -" Rumrik waved a hand at Morto, who stood not far away gorging on a turkey leg and making eyes at an overweight woman who's husband was fixated on another woman of considerably less bulk. "-- he's an imbicilic oaf! Oh, sure, he's okay as a bouncer. He can toss out drunken bums who can hardly walk, but I can't -- you can't expect him to protect me from trained assassins. I need you to guard me until this blows over." Rumrik winked. "You really don't even need to do anything but be here. Think about it: who in their right mind is gonna fool around with a king's hand, huh?"

Again Einar shrugged his shoulders, his lack of empathy clearly etched into his otherwise expressionless face. "So, of all the men in Foresthaven, former soldiers and retired caravan guards who just can't trek the roads any more, you hired... Morto."

"Look, a business owner has to be very careful when hiring a work force," the halfling whined defensively. "If you could look deep enough, you'd find that every man has larceny in his heart." He hesitated, but the look on Einar's face was clearly interpreted as go on. Rumrik's gaze sharpened and he sat up straighter, if not taller, a gleam entering his eyes; Rumrik was about to share a pearl of his wisdom. "Well, the trick, see, is that you can't hire the really smart ones, 'cause they always think up clever scams to steal from you. By the time you catch on, half your money's gone. But you can't hire the really stupid ones, either. They're not smart enough to come up with even a rudimentary scheme before they start stealing from you, and then they can't believe they got caught. You hardly get 'em trained and you have to get rid of 'em and start over."

"So, which one are you?"

Rumrik pursed his lips and offered his over used hurt feelings look. Einar nodded slightly and waved an open hand to indicate that Rumrik should continue. The halfling sighed his frustration, then, with the gleam returning to his boyish eyes, he peered at the nearest tables, apparently looking for eavesdroppers who might try to garner his wisdom without paying for it, before continuing. "Well now, see, what you want to hire, what you have to find are the ones who are average smart and average stupid. See, they want to steal from you, but they know they have to have a pretty good scheme to get away with it, but they're too stupid to come up with something that they think will work."

Einar raised his eye brows and turned a sideways look at Morto, who was currently strutting his best tough guy routine for the husband who had caught him flurting with his obese wife.

Rumrik seemed to shrink a little in his high chair and said, "Yeah, um, I'm still looking."

* * * *

Rumrik was absolutely no help. He claimed he had no ideas as to why someone would want to kill him. Of course he was lying -- Einar had a half-dozen reasons of his own. But, instead, he was sworn to his long dead mother to protect the cursed runt. Or, rather, she had sworn to the runt's mother in Einar's name. In Einar's experience, mothers tended to be all to free with their sons' honor. Anyway, the memory of that particular day was burned into Einar's mind in the same way as his childhood memory of the time he had grabbed a burning brand from the fire.

Young Einar and his mother, cousin to the king, were travelling by coach to the palace when an aging halfling female appeared to throw herself under the iron tires of the coach's wheels. Einar's mother tried to console the impoverished halfling woman who wailed that death was near (though there appeared no obvious injury). The gray-haired little female called to a child who was hiding behind a pile of refuse. It was her only child, a halfling boy. "Please, don't let my son suffer as an orphan on the street," the halfling mother cried. "You must promise me that this poor boy will have a life I can no longer give him." The old halfling clutched at her bosom and wailed her grief. "Oh, death approaches! I implore upon you, protect little Rumrik, provide what you can that he not starve or want for life's essentials." She hugged the child with feeble hands, then gripped Einar's mother's hand in her own. "In life I have asked for nothing. In death, I beg you to take upon you my child's welfare." Einar's mother, in the grief of her guilt for running over Rumrik's mother in her coach, swore that she would provide for the halfling boy, then swore in Einar's name that Einar would be the runt child's protector. Yeah, it was amazing how quickly Rumrik's mother recovered from her impending death.

* * * *

People in the wilderness metropolis of Foresthaven were somewhat different from the cosmopolitan coastal folk of Royal City, but they were similarly and conveniently oblivious to the lawless pursuits of the unsavory element of the population; no witnesses, no leads, no clues. It may well be only a small inconvience, Einar mused, as it was his experience that assassins opted for one of two options when professional protection was called in: a quick attack from the shadows of night before that protection had time to be effective, or a lengthy wait for that protection to become complacent. Of course, if it turned out to be the latter it would be a dreadfully boring inconvenience. Blasted halfling and his... well, whatever it was he did. Einar deliberately forced brighter thoughts into his head and hoped for the quick thrust in the dark; he would be waiting in the dark as well.

The wait was no longer than that very night. Einar watched from the shadows cast by a nearby warehouse as two men, one tall and thin, the other short and fat, approached a patrolling night watchman in the street not far from the Golden Horn. The watchman's purse became heavier and he suddenly needed to patrol the other end of town. With the city guard out of the way, the two ne'er-do-wells slinked past the doors of the Golden Horn and into the alley along side the building.

Einar crossed the road out of sight from the alley then silently followed the two men into the darkness, barely able to make out the darker blobs of their forms in the shadows.

"Owe -- Dabnar, you just kicked me in the shins!" one of them exclaimed, none too quiet.

"Well, Borik, you're the one who said don't light the torch," the other whined in a high-pitched, nasally voice.

Einar detected the splash of liquid, then, "Oh, mother of the gods -- don't light the torch! You didn't throw the oil on the wall, you doused me with it!"

The hand of light spell was the simplest of Einar's magics and he quietly uttered the necessary verbal components. Suddenly, a ball of soft blue light flared from his outstretched palm, casting its soft hues upon the two startled would-be arsonists.

The two men gasped in surprise, then, seeing only one man confronting them, the tall, skinny one drew a sword from a sheath hidden under his long cloak.

Einar opened his cloak enough that the amulet at his throat was visible, then he said, "I am the king's hand. Drop the weapon and yield to me in all that I require or I will show you no mercy."

Both men fervently shook their heads, eyes and mouths wide open in what Einar thought a splendid demonstration of abject terror. The skinny man dropped his sword and cried, "It's the finger -- I mean -- the king's hand that Rumrik's been bragging about!"

The fat man set a bucket down in front of him alongside an empty one tipped on its side. "Oh, please don't kill us!" he pleaded.

"Yeah -- uh, I mean, no, don't," the skinny one added. He was the nasally one, Dabnar. "We's good, law-abiding citizens of the kingdom." He smiled, or tried to, then added, "You know, the king's kingdom."

The fat one, apparently Borik, risked a nervous smile. "Tax-paying citizens at that," Borik added with a bob of his head.

Einar glanced pointedly at the bucket at fat Borik's feet. The two men also glanced at the bucket then looked at each other. Borik said, "Well, we were just deciding not to do what we had planned when you showed up, see, so we're not really guilty of what it looks like."

Einar nodded. "Yes, at least, not guilty long enough for you to get your oil-soaked hide away before your friend here lit his torch."

Both men dropped to their knees, hands extended pleadingly before them. "Please don't pass judgement on us!" fat Borik cried. "It's just that -- well, I own a tavern at the other end of town, the Fried Pork and Ale House. Things was already looking down, what with that Church of the Shining Light fixin' to build a chapel. Them priests are nothin' but thieves, beguiling men into donating their ale money -- my ale money -- as offerings. Why, it just ain't right. Then the Golden Horn opened and my business is down by almost half. I -- I was actually going to offer the halfling a job after his tavern burned down." The man started to sob. "But we won't try it again -- I promise! Please, sir, have -- have mercy on a foolish tavern owner!"

Einar kept a straight face only with difficulty; these men were hardly the assassins he was waiting for, just desperate business owners. Rumrik had not mentioned the Church was coming to Foresthaven. The halfling's business troubles were only beginning; this assassin issue might soon be cleared up, but the gold-grubbing priests were more greedy than the thieves guild and more dangerous than the assassins guild. Terrible shame they were coming to Foresthaven. Still, arson was a felonous crime, even when the victim was someone like, well, Rumrik. Drat. Law was law. Einar sighed, glared at the pathetic, would-be ciminals, then said, "I will not arrest you. But know this: your foolish errand will be on record with the king's hands. If any building in Foresthaven burns, you will be the first suspects." The two fools stayed on their knees, apparently afraid to move without his command. "Go!" he growled, triggering a stampede as the two men hustled out the other end of the alley.

Einar sighed and shook his head remorsefully. It appeared that the assassin was opting for the lengthy wait.

* * * *

Rumrik cast a backward glance at Einar, his eyes peering out from under a red velvet cap that appeared twice too big on the runt. The smug sneer in his expression looked as idiotic on his face as the voluminous cap did on his head. "Do you see how people steer clear of us, Einar? For the past week I've been paying otherwise worthless street urchins to tell everyone who you are and why you're here. I told you just having a king's hand around would make these assassins think twice. Why, after a few more weeks -"

The short stroll to City Hall to allow Rumrik to pay his late occupation taxes (he hadn't dared to go until this morning) was indeed proving the runt's point, but only where it concerned the common city folk. And, as far as a few weeks were concerned -- Einar abruptly halted the pace of his feet. "Hey, Rumbut, if you think I'm -"

Morto's roundly protruding belly thrust into Einar's back, nearly shoving him down onto the muddy boardwalk that fronted the facades of the business district (what good is a boardwalk if no one ever cleaned it?).

Einar recovered his footing then spun to glare at the imbicilic body guard just as the turkey leg Morto had been gorging on -- with his full attention -- fumbled from his fingers to bounce off the soft suede of Einar's leather tunic before tumbling with a squishy splat into the mud at the edge of the boardwalk.

Einar eyed the grease stain on his fine leather before returning a now burning gaze to Morto. The robust yet ungainly bodyguard suddenly found the sign swinging from chains above them of profound interest. The shop offered leather goods, though Einar gravely doubted Morto was about to offer to buy him a new tunic.

Einar slowly turned to face, well, face down, the halfling who was the focus of Einar's rapidly rising temper. "Rumbut, this farce ends today -"

A twange -- of a bowstring! Einar lunged toward Rumrik, intending to take him down and protect him with his own body, but the mud under his booted feet caused him to slip and his unbalanced body crashed with the grace of a felled tree at the halfling's feet, driving the wind from his lungs. Though stunned, Einar detected a second twange just before pain erupted in his buttocks. He thought he had taken an arrow until he realized that Morto had trodden his great mass over the top of him to stand in front of his employer, his arms stretched out like he indended to catch the next arrow in his bare hands.

Einar rolled to his feet -- the lumbering oaf was at least brave -- and darted into the street in the direction the arrows had come from, the corner of the textile shop across the street, just as other pedestrians, finally aware of the threat of violence, emptied from the street and fled down the boardwalks in either direction.

Einar, gasping air into lungs that were finally starting to work again, reached the corner of the far shop with sword drawn, crouched low, then flung himself into the alley. No one. The next street over was a bustle of activity, but offered no sign of the attacker.

Einar headed back to the halfling while he brushed at his mud soiled tunic with his left hand. Getting stains out of suede was murder, though, unfortunately, not a crime that a king's hand could pursue. He returned to the scene of the actual crime to find Rumrik, hands on hips, fuming over, or rather under, his ruined velvet cap. The second arrow had snatched it off the halfling's head and pinned it to the wall of the leather goods shop.

Einar laughed with energy, unable to contain his adrenalin-fueled humor. "Gee, Rumbut, if you were anything but the runt you are you'd be dead!"

Rumrik spun on one foot to fix a firm, pouting gaze at Einar. "I'll have you know that I'm the tallest halfling in my family," he bawled, then thrust a finger at the torn velvet hat. "Look at this. It's expensive -- and ruined!"

A sudden flaring pain from Einar's backside cut short his laughter as well as his stride; Morto's clumsily trodding boot had inflicted one heck of a bruise on Einar's hind end.

Rumrik testily stamped his foot then, using all his weight, jerked the arrow from the wood planking of the wall. He grabbed the arrow firmly in both hands then lifted one knee with the obvious intent of breaking the shaft.

"Stop!" Einar called out. He rushed to the halfling and, with an annoyed, "I'll take that," seized the arrow from Rumrik's grip.

The halfling scratched his head. "What, a souvenir?"

Einar did not take his eyes from the arrow. "No. Evidence. Perhaps we can learn something." Einar brushed his fingers along the smooth shaft of the missile. "So, what clues can you reveal about our assassin?" he muttered. His examination was abruptly hindered by a throaty, slobbering noise. He cast a sidelong glance at Morto to see him gleefully chomping on the turkey leg he had retrieved from the mud. Einar opened his mouth to berate the man then stifled his intended reproach; the big guy did try to take an arrow for his employer. And, well, Morto had at least flicked off most of the mud.

* * * *

The arrow point was a three-point forged tip intended to seriously wound and bleed out its victim. It was clearly marked with CMS, initials that identified a successful smithing shop in Royal City on the coast. As a clue it meant little, as CMS arrow tips were traded across the kingdom and even beyond the Blue Mountains. But there were other clues: the arrow shaft was shaped from dark rockwood, a tree native to the coastal plains; the feathers of the fletching were the yellow and black of the addox, a large avian species also native to the coastal region -- not an indisputable clue, except that fletchers plyed their craft in every sizeable village and generally used local resources; the vanes of the fletching included four, rather than the more common three feathers, indicative of premium work done for the nobility and well-to-do of Royal City, also indicated by a bone nock at the base of the arrow rather than the common notch carved in the base of the shaft itself. The final and most revealing clue was on the forged tip: rust. Scouring marks on the iron of the tip suggested that the metal had been cleaned recently, but rust in the hard to reach furrows of the tri-tip indicated that the arrow had spent a lot of time in a humid region. Foresthaven was situated in the upland wilderness, very dry when compared to the humid lowlands of the coastal region. The assassin was from the coastal plain, very likely from Royal City itself.

The hairs at the base of Einar's neck stood at attention; this would not be a common caravan guard or footman turned by greed to a killer for hire, but a true assassin highly trained in the art of stealth and murder. Whatever Rumrik had done, he had pissed off someone of importance.

* * * *

As a denizen of the coastal plain, the assassin should stand out to the locals of Foresthaven almost as much as Einar himself did. Besides the differing tonal and speech patterns and variance in dialect, there were other clues that might help to narrow in on the assassin: the manner and self-assured arrogance of most every warrior; the leather guard to protect the bow arm, or the untanned forearm if the man wasn't wearing it; the bow itself -- he could hardly bury it outside the city.

With these clues Einar began the circuit of the city's inns, questioning the staff at each, gaining their earnest cooperation with the simple display of his amulet, the emblem of his office. Einar was well aware that there were two likely results from his search: either he would find the assassin or he would draw out the killer-for-hire after himself. Well, it beat listening to Rumrik for weeks waiting for the assassin's next attempt on the runt's life.

The sun was a full hour past setting as he approached the last inn of the city in the deepening gloom of the evening. Not being familiar with Foresthaven, Einar maneuvered the twisted streets to this last inn with the aid of his light spell, the soft blue light resting on the palm of his oustretched hand.

The light was a beacon to the assassin, if he were out there, giving him a distinct advantage in any initial attack against Einar, though a sharp and attentive observation had detected no sign of surveillance throughout the day.

Einar was lucky to detect any warning at all, a slight sound behind him -- a blade being drawn from a scabbard! Einar spun around and stepped to the side while drawing his sword in a rapid, fluidic motion just in time to parry his assailant's slash attack.

The blue light on Einar's palm winked out. Only seconds later, the attacker uttered the appropriate spell and a ball of blue light appeared in his own off hand, which he quickly tossed to the ground close to Einar's feet. An ill portent -- the assassin was more skilled with the hand of light spell than was Einar; his light would stay for a time where he tossed it and did not require concentration to keep it active. Did the assassin have other magics greater than Einar's?

The unknown assassin immediately pressed several forceful attacks, forcing Einar to step back while parrying each numbing blow; the attacker was as skillful as Einar had feared he might be.

Einar thrust a sudden, enfeebling fear of defeat from his mind. You are a king's hand, he wordlessly rebuked himself. You must think like one.

There -- by the rear door of the inn, someone had already set out a waste bucket for the night wagon. Einar reached out his hand. His magical powers stretched out along the path his arm began and encircled the bucket; its weight was just within his ability to lift. And lift he did -- the bucket rose from the ground then rushed at the assassin to strike the back of his head, splashing a cascading torrent of human waste and kitchen detritus over his shoulders and down his back. The assassin grunted and staggered, somewhat stunned though he maintained his guard. Not that it would help him. Einar cast his last useful spell and a small fireball erupted from his hand and shot towards the assassin, rapidly growing before it engulfed the target. The fireball quickly dissipated -- Einar wasn't particularly good even with this spell -- but not before the man's face received a good blistering and the front of his tunic ignited in flames.

The frantic assassin dropped his blade and thrust his hands up to his face, then fell to the ground to roll and writhe, screaming, "Ahh -- ahh -- hot -- hot!"

Einar removed his cloak and draped it over the assassin to help smother the flames. When the task was done, he carefully looked over the moaning, foul-odored, would-be assassin in the blue-glow of the light spell. The fireball had burned off the frontal half of his hair and scorched and blistered the man's face and hands, but the evil smelling fluids of the bucket had saved the man from much worse burns. He would suffer some extreme pain for a while but, Einar decided, the man would live. "Tsk, tsk, tsk," he chided, "this is a dangerous line of work. Perhaps you should find anoth -"

Einar's attention was drawn to a tatoo on the man's chest that had been revealed by the parting of the assassin's burned and rent tunic. The image was a sphere with curved lines radiating out from it, a sun image, with a dagger superimposed over the sun. The man was an assassin for the Church of the Shining Light -- the last people in all the kingdom that Einar would choose to be at odds with.

* * * *

Einar burst through the double doors and marched to where Rumrik was overseeing, well, underseeing the bar maids in the clean-up of the tavern after a busy night. Rumrik waved, a cheery smile on his narrow lips. "Hi Einar, see any suspicious character -- hey -- ech!" Einar grabbed the little sneak by the collar of his tunic and roughly lifted him into the air then slammed him onto a table top and held him there.

"An assassin of the Church of the Shining Light just tried to kill me, Rumrik." The halfling gulped; Einar's snarled lips indicated the degree of his anger. "You lied to me, you little sneak."

"No, I swear I didn't." Rumrik gulped again. "Maybe they'll leave us alone, um, now that you killed their assassin. You think?"

Einar shook his head. "I didnÕt kill him. And if you think they'll leave you alone, you don't know these people."

Einar slammed the halfling onto the table again to make sure he had his attention, and because it felt good. "Now, you are going to tell me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, may the gods help you, or, may the gods help me, I will turn you over to the church and tell them the king has no interest in your welfare."

"But, your mother vowed to my mother that you would protect me," the little swindler squeeked.

"Rumrik, either you come clean with me, or I disavow myself from my mother's promise."

Rumrik looked into Einar's eyes for a moment and apparently decided that Einar meant what he said. "Okay, okay, I... stole the church's gold, six thousand, four hundred and sixty-seven pieces. It's the money they were gonna use to build a church here in Foresthaven."

Einar's eye brows lifted. "You counted that many pieces?"

Rumrik nodded. "Seven times."

Einar released the halfling and started pacing, shock displacing rage in his firm visage. "I can hardly believe this. You thieved from the Church of the Shining Light? Rumbut, what were you thinking?" He was beginning to rant. He did a lot of that with Rumrik. "I'll tell you something: you're not the smart thief -- you're not even the average smart and average stupid thief, you're the really stupid thief. Surely you know that the shining light these church people refer to is the gleam in their priests' eyes when they see gold?"

"Can you protect me?" Rumrik asked in a childish voice that finally evidenced a little fear.

"Gods, no, I can't protect you! These people have their own secret brotherhood of trained assassins! By all that is holy -- Rumrik, even the king is careful not to insult the priests of the Church of the Shining Light. These guys are lunatics!"

"So what do we do?" Rumrik asked in a tiny voice. Gee, the magnitude of his fumble was finally sinking in.

"What do we -" Einar was shifting up from rant to roar. Hmm. Rage was coming back. He shifted himself back down to rant. "You are going to give the gold back to the priests, and I'm going to try and convince them not to dice up the both of us."

"But, the gold's gone," Rumrik squeeked. "I spent it all in building this tavern and buying a six-month supply of booze."

Einar sighed. Twice. "I am going to save our skins by making this right with the priests." He thumped the tip of his finger into the halfling's forehead -- normally he would thump a man in the chest, but Rumrik was too short. "And, what ever it takes, you are going to pay the bill."

Rumrik gulped and nodded emphatically. "Okay -- whatever you say!"

* * * *

"How could you do this to me!" Rumrik shrilled over the pounding hammers and sawing saws. "They'll ruin me!"

"You may be right," Einar replied, observing the rapid progress of the tool toting church goers who were constantly cajoled to greater effort by the pious yet magnificently appareled priests. "If these guys can solicit membership the way they can solicit work they might convert your whole clientelle -- they will at least persuade them to part with a good portion of their drinking money as offerings to their church."

Rumrik pressed his forehead into his hands. "It's not them who've ruined me, it's you -- agreeing to let them build a chapel onto the front of my tavern." Rumrik shook his head, his hands keeping time. "Ruined, I tell you," he moaned. "I don't know what mother would say -" Rumrik's face sprang away from his hands "-- yes I do! She'd go to your mother and say that you'd purposefully destroyed my first big attempt to make a life away from crime."

"This first big attempt of yours was financed by your last big crime."

Rumrik settled his chin into his cupped hands, his expression a familiar pout. "You make everything so complicated."

"Yeah, well, this complication," Einar waved at the chapel rapidly taking shape at the tavern's front door, "is gonna let you to live to see if you really can make good on this first big attempt of yours. Have you already forgotten that it's this deal or assassination?" He smiled at the little thief -- er -- business man. "You really shouldn't let the chapel get you so down. You've actually proven to have a head for business." He smiled and shrugged his shoulders as he often did. "It is true that this situation will require cleverness, guile, and undoubtedly some deceit, but you, Rumbut, are the perfect man -- er -- halfling for the job."

Rumrik's face brightened. "Wow! You just gave me a compliment -" The halfling's forehead furrowed with exaggerated annoyance. "Hey, you called me Rumbut. I hate it when you call me Rumbut!"

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