Faerie Lord

Fifty-Nine

‘You located him?’ Hairstreak asked the cloud dancer.

‘Yes.’

‘You reached him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where was he?’

‘Near the Mountains of Madness.’

Hairstreak frowned. He’d never heard of the Mountains of Madness. ‘Where’s that?’

‘The Kingdom of Buthner.’

Buthner? That godsforsaken hole? What did Brimstone think he was doing in Buthner? Then, like a thunderbolt, an answer occurred to him. Hiding something. Brimstone had to be hiding something. Except it couldn’t be the one thing that interested Hairstreak, he’d never have managed to smuggle that out of the country. So it had to be something else. Unless he wasn’t hiding something. Unless he’d gone to Buthner for something. Hairstreak felt his mind go into a whirl of indecision. This was why he’d hired the cloud dancer, dammit. ‘What was he doing there?’ he demanded.

‘I don’t know,’ the cloud dancer said.

Hairstreak glared at it. ‘You don’t know?’ he repeated. ‘Didn’t you bother to ask him?’

The cloud dancer said, ‘Yes.’

When it became obvious the creature wasn’t going to elaborate, Hairstreak said, ‘And…?’

‘He refused to tell me.’

‘Of course he refused to tell you!’ Lord Hairstreak exploded. ‘What did you expect? If the old goat was prepared to tell people. I’d have asked him myself. That was the whole point of hiring you, you insubstantial cretin. So you could force it out of him. Didn’t you try to force it out of him?’

The cloud dancer said, ‘Yes.’

When it became obvious for the second time the creature wasn’t going to elaborate, Hairstreak repeated, ‘And…?’

‘I think I may have overdone it.’

This was turning into a minuet. Hairstreak controlled his fury with an effort. ‘Why do you think you may have overdone it?’

‘Because he is now insane.’

‘You sent him mad?’ Hairstreak screamed. ‘So he can no longer answer questions?’

The cloud dancer said, ‘Yes.’

Hairstreak thumped the table with such force that the surface cracked. ‘And what are you going to do about it?’ he demanded.

A portion of the cloud dancer’s arm disappeared as it reached into its own dimension, then reappeared with a wide-necked jug, which it placed on the table before Hairstreak. Then it pushed two fingers down its throat, retched violently and vomited a quantity of curdled blood into the jug.

It stared triumphantly at Hairstreak. ‘Return your fee,’ it said.