In the Grip of Time by Adam Jacob Burgess

Author:Adam Jacob Burgess [Burgess, Adam Jacob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781838088613
Publisher: Nunmill Press
Published: 2020-06-21T22:00:00+00:00

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After they had received their payment, Sawwse and Corinne ambled back to the city, beating the nightfall by minutes.

Returning to the guild, they sought out Convener who was, unusually, sat alone by the empty hearth. He seemed to be gazing into it intently, but it was hard to tell. The top of the mask was furrowed, resembling a frown. It relaxed as two new bodies entered the space.

‘Welcome back, friends,’ Convener said quietly, taking the contract Corinne handed to him. ‘You stopped the Rhinoholm. Well done.’

He turned away from the hearth to face them, and Sawwse quickly recounted their day’s work.

‘I must admit, Elven opera tends to put me to sleep as well,’ he said. The mask shifted ever so slightly into a smile.

‘It was a well-executed plan from Sawwse.’ Corinne gestured to the gnome. ‘Here is the settlement.’ She placed a coin purse on the small wooden stool next to Convener.

He carefully placed his hand inside and retrieved forty aur.

‘This is for the guild. The rest is to be divided evenly.’

Convener turned back to the empty hearth, while Corinne took up the coin purse and gestured for Sawwse to follow her to another table within the inn. She tipped the contents of the purse onto the table and counted up sixty aur each. Sawwse’s eyes widened. It was more than enough to pay what she owed Con Duco. The gnome was pleased about this, but distracted by Convener’s preoccupied air.

‘What do you imagine he’s thinking about?’ whispered Sawwse.

The trainee mage considered the question carefully.

‘Perhaps Alla’fyr? Perhaps the idol?’ she suggested. ‘It is hard to tell what’s going on behind that mask. But perhaps it’s best we don’t know. Now, I believe we’ve earnt some dinner.’

The smells that came wafting in from the kitchen were hardly appetising: burnt garlic, charcoal and liquorice. When the food itself appeared, it did nothing to overturn their low expectations. The anatomy of small fish was made perfectly clear to the gnome, as she found tiny chunks of flesh between a thousand bones. The fish sat atop a pile of limp, soggy vegetables. Two misshapen potatoes rounded off the disappointing dinner.

‘Excuse me,’ Corinne said, standing. ‘I must see someone about this.’

Sawwse chuckled. Once she’d eaten as much of the food as she dared, the gnome pushed her plate to one side and retrieved the Gnomeopedia. She heaved the tome out of her bag and it fell onto the table with a big thunk.

The compendium of knowledge was written in a friendly tone, but organised in a typically Gnomish way, chaotically. Sawwse flicked past pages on Frimbledops and Frimpledeeps, the terrain of (Northern) Brastos, to the sounds of the Sao bird, until she found what she was looking for: Magic. It was one of the longer entries in the Gnomeopedia. The Gnehsehgs who had put together the book described their experience of magic, the many uses they had encountered, and how dangerous it could be. Sawwse found one section particularly interesting:

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