Disturbing Clockwork

By D.L. Morrese

Not so long ago, on a planet not too far away, a quirky inventor washes up on a desert island and discovers devices that defy belief. They appear to be clockwork automatons, but he has never seen their like, and, brilliant as he is, he cannot imagine how they can do the things they do — which is pretty much anything asked of them. Such amazing technology! Where did they come from? How do they work? Benkin, a lifelong student of natural philosophy, sees them as a key to unlock the secrets of science and the wonders of the universe. Snyde, a dangerous fugitive from the king’s justice, sees them as a means to power.

• Language: English
• Publisher: D.L. Morrese
• Release date: Apr 21, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301330645

D.L. Morrese

DL Morrese manages to make a living despite a degree in philosophy and spends his free time thinking and writing, although not necessarily in that order. He currently hangs out around Orlando, Florida because he got sick of shoveling snow but sort of misses watching it from a safe distance inside, by a fireplace, with a cup of hot chocolate. He has long been a fan of speculative fiction and one day, while not shoveling snow, figured he should try writing some. He’s still trying to decide if this was a good idea.

Book preview

Books by D.L. Morrese

~*~

~Warden's World Novels~

An Android Dog's Tale

The Warden Threat (Defying Fate Part 1)

The Warden War (Defying Fate Part 2)

Amy's Pendant

Disturbing Clockwork

~*~

~Adventures of the Brane Child~

Brane Child

The Scarecrow's Brane

The Brane of the Space Pirates

~*~

~Other Books~

The Elsewhere Gate

Troubled Space: The Interstellar Adventures of an Unknown Indie Writer

Disturbing Clockwork

A Warden's World Novel

D.L. Morrese

DIGITAL EDITION

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

Fuzzy Android Press

(http://fuzzyandroid.wordpress.com/)

ASIN: B00CGMZT24

eBook ISBN: 9781301330645

Trade Paperback First Edition: ISBN: 9781484009093

Trade Paperback Second Edition: 9781793293794

Copyright © 2013-2019 by DL Morrese

License Notes

License Notes

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in a form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a Website without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

First eBook edition: April 2013

First Paperback Edition: May 2013

Second editions: December 2018

Author's Notes

I wish to thank Rowan for editing, Chris for proofreading, and all the others who volunteered their time and attention to the publication of this novel. The finished work is far better than it could have been without you. This edition adds a new cover and cleans up some prose. Anything that still looks peculiar is either intentional or additional proof that no one is perfect.

Units of Measure

Time, distance, and other units of measure reflected in the story that follows have been converted, along with the languages, to something understandable by readers living on Earth at the dawn the 21st Century. It was either this or put a conversion table and glossary at the end of the book, and no one likes those.

Regarding Androids

Androids, by definition, are automatons that resemble humans. In this book, along with the other Warden's World books that follow, the term is used to refer to constructed beings with human-like cognitive abilities rather than an exclusively humanoid physical appearance. To do otherwise would simply be speciesist. Many of the androids you will meet in these books don't look like people, but they do sometimes think and act a bit like them.

Maps

Maps and other information about the Warden's World can be found on the author's website, http://dlmorrese.wordpress.com/.

Part One

Things Found Under Rocks

One

Shipwreck

In which Benkin pursues a lizard and moves some rocks

Benkin washed up on the beach, just one more bit of waterlogged debris from the good ship Wet Dream. An unfortunate name, perhaps, but one with no connotations or implications whatsoever in the language of Westgrove, other than as a sailor's longing for the sea. The name of the small coastal trader no longer much mattered, though. In its final resting place on the sandy sea floor off the south coast of Westgrove, the ship might be of further interest only to historians of insignificant trivia or desperate salvagers.

The aforementioned bit of human flotsam opened one salt-crusted eye to see a long-legged, knock-kneed dorkybird staring at him. Benkin recognized it immediately. A stuffed example of the misnamed species occupied a spot alongside other subtropical winged reptiles on one of the many shelves in his residence near Nooton.

The live dorkybird eyed his prone form with casual disinterest. Benkin felt no cause for alarm. Dorkybirds and humans are mutually inedible. A curious fact is that the former apparently dine only on bugs and berries that humans and many other animals are incapable of digesting. It represented one of several odd aspects of nature on the natural philosopher's long mental list of things to look into someday.

He lifted his head enough to free his cheek from the wet sand and opened his other eye. The view did not improve. A short length of beach littered with driftwood, sodden fabric, and other bits of detritus the sea could not quickly swallow curved inward and out of sight. He cautiously turned his head the opposite way and met with a very similar landscape. This, together with his estimate of where the ship terminally confronted some underwater obstacle, suggested he came ashore on one of the small, uninhabited dots of dirt and rock between Bugfish and Demon Islands. It could be worse. He could be at the bottom with the ship.

With less pain than he expected, he got to his feet and peered up and down the beach for other survivors. He did not see anyone, living or otherwise. Surely, he could not be the only one to reach land. Perhaps the captain and crew had made it to one of the other small islands, or maybe to the other side of this one. He felt sure they could fend for themselves, and he dismissed their fate from his mind. They were all experienced sailors whereas he, most certainly, was not, although he was probably the only one among them to have an inflatable emergency flotation tube. There were only two in existence. One, now slightly deflated, formed a ring around his chest just under his armpits. The other one, the prototype, remained somewhere in his lab on the mainland.

He wiggled out of the buoyant device and pinched the valve to release the remaining air inside with a long, flatulent sound not unlike that of a dog fed too much cheese. A very successful field test, he thought to himself, taking note of the one positive aspect of his current situation. It might be his only accomplishment on this trip. The flora, fauna, and mineral samples he had painstakingly gathered over the last six weeks, and his copious notes and sketches, all probably went down with the ship. It seemed such a shame, but just that, not a catastrophe. His collection included nothing irreplaceable. He could always charter another ship and run the same circuit of the nearby islands again. It seemed ironic that they had safely navigated areas that were far more treacherous and then ran into trouble in relatively calm coastal waters on the way home.

He scanned the deceptively tranquil water to the flat, blue horizon to see if he could tell where the ship went down, but he found no sign of it. He did see ample evidence of its passing in the form of flotsam hugging the shore, and he began gathering the bits that he thought might prove useful.

It never occurred to him that he might be marooned here for a long time, although it would probably have been the foremost concern of most people. These islands saw few visitors. They contained nothing of value and some things that could prove dangerous. Coastal ships normally hugged the mainland, and the larger oceangoing ships went wide around them in deeper, and therefore safer, water. The odds of being noticed and rescued anytime soon were slim, but waiting for rescue is not what he planned.

He could have wished for more, but the crates, barrels, and boxes he managed to drag up the beach should suffice along with a few things naturally occurring on his small island refuge. He would not need a large craft. Although he had never built a boat or even a raft before, he knew the principles, and he did not doubt he could manage something adequate to get him at least as far as Bugfish Island. It was the smaller of the two big islands south of Harvest Grove and the closest to the mainland. No one called that unfriendly collection of rock, sand, swamp, and jungle home, but the Westgrovian Navy maintained a lighthouse there. At his best guess, it rested no more than twenty miles north or northeast of his current relatively dry haven.

He hefted the last of the salvageable crates up the beach and dropped it with the others. The musical clink of well-packed glass caught his attention.

A quick search through his recovered items yielded an iron spike in a stout piece of wood, which he used to pry open the crate's top. Inside, neatly packed in separate rectangular cubicles, were twenty-four bottles of rum, each packed in woven straw. He carefully lifted a fine example of a caring distiller's art from its secure nest, a smile gracing his suntanned face.

Bottles! He could use them to store specimens from this tiny island, once he emptied them, of course. He pulled out the protruding cork with his teeth and took a healthy swallow of the strong, sweet liquid. Things were looking up.

Sometime between his unhurried departure from the slowly sinking ship and his semiconscious arrival on the island, dawn had happened, bringing with it clear skies and a mild breeze carrying the smell of seaweed, fish, and wild vegetation. A lush jungle of ferns, creepers, and scrub-brush trees around a low, rocky hill formed the interior of the small island. The bristly fronds of the trees waved lazily on thin, flexible trunks, adding to the illusion of a tropical paradise. Yes, it could be much worse, Benkin thought, taking another pull from the bottle.

The only immediate danger he might face in a place like this would be from a bardusaur, but even they should not pose much of a threat, assuming there were any here. The large, amphibious reptiles dined mostly on bugfish or the occasional unwary dorkybird or one of its smaller cousins. Bardusaurs did not eat humans and normally ignored them unless startled or provoked. When the beasts did attack people, often swallowing them whole, they immediately spat them back out, although seldom as whole as they went in. Apparently, they did not like the taste. They were not the most intelligent of animals, though, and sometimes seemed to forget this. It would be best to avoid them if possible.

A definite concern would be food. Other than the rum, Benkin salvaged very little that was edible, and few of the plants or animals on islands such as these could be safely eaten by people. Fresh water would be a problem, too.

He swatted at the targum bug buzzing by his ear. The four-winged, iridescent green insect shot off toward the dense vegetation. Benkin gazed in the same direction, wondering when anyone had last visited this little speck of nature. He might be the first person ever to come here. Most people saw these little bits of land as little more than navigational hazards, all alike and all worthless.

He saw them differently. In his pursuits of the wonders of natural philosophy, he noted that there were slight variations in the flora and fauna between them and that those variations were greater with distance. This fascinated him, although it could be said that almost everything fascinated Benkin at one time or another. His mind could flit from one thing to the next like a butterfly sampling nectar, although it often focused on one, at least for a time, like a hawk hunting a rabbit.

He took another swallow from the bottle and banged in the cork. It took him two tries. The few sips he remembered taking were somehow enough to empty almost half of the bottle. He secured it in one of the large pockets of his custom designed vest, relocating a magnifying glass, a waterproof packet of matches, and a small sewing kit to a smaller pocket to make room. Confident he had what he needed, he made his way into the dense foliage.

The stench of the jungle hit him like an invisible wall after only a few steps, which counteracted some of the fuzzy complacency caused by the rum. The reek of rot, noxious fungus, and vile but interesting secretions from both plants and animals reminded him that he needed to tread with caution. Few things here were poisonous enough to kill him just by touching them, but they might cause a nasty rash. Still, the thought that this place might be home to something never before seen—some new type of insect, an odd plant variant, or maybe even a unique species of reptile or flightless bird—compelled him to explore.

He navigated toward the center hump of the island, which he glimpsed now and then between gaps in the undergrowth. Several things attracted his attention, and he paused now and again to examine something more closely. Nothing proved unique, however. Examples of all the species he saw residing here so far could be found elsewhere.

He considered turning back toward the beach to begin work on his escape craft, when an odd flash of color caught the corner of his eye. Snapping his attention in that direction, he saw it again.

A small yellow lizard hopped off a nearby bush and raced away from him.

A mochrotidae anolis! It must be, but he never heard of yellow ones. The large and varied family of the little bug-eaters included members in various shades of brown, gray, and green but not yellow.

He stumbled to follow it, almost tripping over an exposed root on the jungle floor. The unique reptile appeared to be making for the rocky outcropping at the island's center.

Benkin soon lost sight of his colorful quarry but continued in the direction he last saw it heading. When the vegetation thinned, he saw more of the yellow lizards sunning themselves on an outcropping of rocks. He approached to get a closer look, determined to capture a specimen before leaving the island.

When he got within about an arm's length of the closest one, all those within view dashed into crannies in the rocks as if at some silent signal.

That's odd, he said. Neither the lizards nor their behavior prompted his verbalized comment. The rock formation itself is what caused the shift in his curiosity. It shouldn't be here.

It took him less than five minutes to pace a circuit around it, pausing occasionally to make a closer examination, causing more of the small yellow reptiles to seek refuge in the rock's deep cracks and crevices. The outcrop appeared to be peridotite, but this particular type of plutonic rock did not appear on any of the other islands in the region. The formation also appeared unnatural, although it did not seem to be a building or even the ruins of one. The arrangement suggested that someone had placed it here intentionally with the intent of making it appear as if they had not, rather the way in which a garden pond totally fails to look like a scum-layered pool in the woods.

Benkin stepped away from the formation, removing the bottle from his pocket. After a fortifying swig of the contents, he considered the question the rocks posed. He could not imagine why anyone would transport peridotite here for any purpose other than perhaps as ballast. Although dense, the pervasively fractured stone weathered easily and held no commercial value. This could be the case. A passing ship had dumped its ballast here…. No, that made no sense. Why drag it this far inland?

He took another sip from the bottle, considered some more, and sipped again. After reducing the bottle's contents by a few more finger widths, he came up with a somewhat rational hypothesis, or so it seemed to him at the time. A large, ocean-going ship had run aground on this island, probably after being caught in a storm. The surviving crew must have hauled the valuable cargo they were carrying safely up to higher ground and then concealed it under the rocks they were using as ballast. What became of them afterwards remained a mystery but not one that he need concern himself with since it seemed clear that this could not have happened recently. Yes, that might explain it, and it would be a simple theory to test. All he would need do is shift some of those large stones. The consideration of how to do that entailed a few more sips.

That one, he said after a few moments of observation, pointing the neck of the bottle at a particularly large slab of rock leaning against the others.

Tipping it took several hours and an ingenious use of small rocks as wedges, larger rocks as hammers, and a length of stout wood as a lever. When the slab finally fell, he celebrated by downing the last of the rum.

Benkin climbed from the precarious perch he took in order to push down on his improvised lever and peered at the spot previously concealed by the fallen stone.

That's odd, he said, taking a wobbly step forward. A gap in the rocks turned into to a low tunnel slanting downwards. It continued past where the light could reach, especially with him blocking the entrance.

Crouching, he eased his way inside, removed a packet of matches from one his numerous vest pockets, and struck one against the rock wall. It flared to light revealing an alcove containing things that would have made no sense to him even fully sober.

Startled, he attempted to stand but failed to complete the motion when he abruptly ran out of headroom.

Two

Things Begin

In which a message is sent, a story is told, and a fugitive overhears

Trixie hastened down the wide front steps, barely noticing the bright flowers of yellow, purple, and pink that Buque, another longtime resident, had planted earlier that spring to add a bit more color to the main entrance of Madame Brockwell's Boardinghouse for Professional Young Ladies. She sprinted to the crowded main street but did not slow, weaving dexterously around other pedestrians, and then navigated between stalls and early morning shoppers, which served as minor obstacles in her path across East Market Square. The smell of simmering onions, baked goods, and 'real meat' pies from the food vendors assaulted her nostrils.

A flock of pigeons searching the pavement for ostensibly edible scraps scattered out of her way, some taking wing but most waddling a few bobbing steps and casting her suspicious, or perhaps hopeful, glances. The feathered urban scavengers would have to wait a bit longer for their bounty to arrive. The early bird might get the worm, but it was the afternoon pigeon that got the discarded meat pie.

Trixie almost ran into one of the feathered hazards when it decided to fly directly in front of her. She swerved to her left without slowing and felt it brush her right shoulder. She chided herself for spending so much time getting ready that morning, but she wanted to be presentable. Now she needed to rush to get there on time, hopefully without working up a sweat and making her earlier preparations pointless.

She crossed over to the Mound, the roughly egg-shaped island in the middle of the river that ran through the capital city of Greatbridge. The large, stone bridge spanning the sluggish waters commemorated a victory in one of the intergrove wars from over three hundred years before. Fortunately, such conflicts ended with the Berwick Agreement two centuries ago, which unified Westgrove under a single king.

A pair of granite battle gonds in full armor stood guard at each end of the wide bridge. The stone beasts were life size, half again as large as regular gonds. Unlike their cousins, the battle gonds possessed long tusks and down curved horns, giving them a fearsome appearance, although they were no more naturally aggressive than those used to pull wagons or saddled to spare the tender feet of the well-to-do.

The castle gate she planned to use remained only about a block away, and she slowed to compose herself before she arrived. She had seen very little of Prince Donald after she attended the ball held in his honor ten weeks ago. He had called on her services as a guild-certified messenger only one other time since then, and she saw him briefly after she returned from that assignment. That was what? She counted back the days—about four weeks ago. That was it. Two times in ten weeks. She could not realistically expect the camaraderie they shared before to continue, of course. The vast difference in their social stations precluded any such thing.

She looked back on their adventure as a once in a lifetime experience. For five months, more or less, she accompanied the prince as he tried to find a way to prevent Westgrove and Gotrox from going to war. The experience varied greatly from what most young ladies might imagine travels with a prince might be like. It mostly involved slogging through frozen mud, and, at one point, she was forced to kill a man. Unfortunately, it was not the first time, although she fervently hoped it would be the last.

There were a few times, though, when things came closer to fairytale expectations. She enjoyed riding in the posh coach that brought them to Gotrox, and she felt important sharing it with royalty. Being a guest at the Westgrovian embassy in Kartok also made her feel special. But the ball held in Prince Donald's honor—now that was truly amazing. She did not really know what to say or what fork to use, but it hardly mattered. She sat at the prince's table. She dined on the most excellently prepared dishes. She wore an elegant dress and danced with, well, she couldn't remember all of them now, but many of them had titles and most of them were gentlemen of property and position. For that one night, she felt like a princess.

But she was not a princess. She was a messenger, a good one, but still just a working girl. As the daughter of an impoverished laundress and an orphan before reaching her teenage years, she could claim no title or property. A year ago, she did not even know how to read or write. No, that one taste of equality with the noble, the rich, and the highborn is all she would likely ever have. It felt grand while it lasted, and she would cherish the memory for a lifetime.

The guards at the castle gate, in their crisp red and white uniforms, passed her in without question, and she made straight for the Magician's Tower. Officially, it went by a different name now, but everyone still called it that. King Leonard had dismissed his last court magician over a year ago and decided he could do without one, apparently. Trixie did not know the full story, but King Leonard replaced the position of Court Magician with that of Royal Science Adviser, and he tasked his son Donald with establishing a new Westgrove Center for Scientific Advancement. The Magician's Tower was still being renovated and remodeled to provide a home for it, and the young prince occupied a temporary office on the ground floor.

A wooden wedge propped the tower door open to allow workmen and fresh spring air to enter unhindered. Trixie noticed several of the former outside sawing boards and mixing plaster.

She stepped through the doorway to the sound of hammering echoing down a curving staircase along the wall.

Woof.

A medium-size dog of no particular breed trotted toward her from a hallway facing the door.

She smiled. Hello, Moe.

The dog wagged his tail, and she reached down to give him a kindly scratch behind one ear. Is Prince Donald here?

Woof, the dog said, although it was a different sounding woof than the woof he woofed before. She would also swear he nodded just before he turned to lead her down the corridor. She had never met another dog as intelligent as Moe, and he certainly seemed devoted to the prince.

Trixie followed the dog and heard the prince's voice before they reached the end of the hallway. He sounded excited.

Excuse me, Your Highness, she said from the doorway.

The early morning light from a narrow window caught Donald's face in profile as he bent his attention to something on a table near the center of the quarter-round room. She recalled that when she first met him, he struck her as a bumbling clod, a naive child in a young man's body.

He had grown since then, matured, and the man she saw standing here now differed greatly from the immature boy she knew before. In fact, he was really rather quite handsome, she thought. A girlish daydream involving poor girls and princes tried to take form in her mind, but she waved it away before it could coalesce. She felt silly for even imagining such things, and it might be inappropriate as well. At the very most, she and the prince might be regarded as friends, but many would consider even that type of relationship an improper violation of conservative social boundaries.

Prince Donald glanced up from the contraption that drew his attention. It consisted mainly of a glass disc and some copper tubing. Trixie could not guess at its purpose, but the prince seemed extremely interested in it. His personal bodyguard, Muce, and their travelling companion, Kwestor, stood near the table with him. Neither of them seemed quite as taken with the device as the prince was.

Trixie! Please, come in. Prince Donald said. We've been experimenting with this amazing invention. Muce's uncle Mel put it together for us based on some drawings done by an inventor in Harvest Grove. It's called a Lightning Rubber, according to the sketch.

A what? she asked, having no idea what the name signified.

I said it was a bad name, Kwestor commented. The gloomy-faced ranger slowly shook his head. It makes it sound like some kind of preventative, if you know what I mean.

Well, I'm sure the name doesn't matter, the prince said, but it is sort of apt. You rub this rotating disc with something like wool or fur and it creates what the designer calls 'lightning juice,' which can be stored in this specially prepared bottle. The prince pointed out a glass jar with some metal foil wrapped around the lower half and a lid with a metal ball on top. And when you touch the top and the side at the same time, it makes tiny bolts of lightning.

I wouldn't do it, if I were you, Miss Trixie, Muce, the simple but big-hearted bodyguard said. It smarts something awful. He shook his shaggy blonde head, his blue eyes wincing. Both of these physical traits were characteristic of notsos, so called because they were not so tall as the tall folk and not so fair as the fairfolk. Unlike many of his race, though, Muce possessed the physique of a battle gond, although he was at least a bit quicker in both senses of the word.

The prince regarded the shorter but far more muscular man. Muce volunteered to try it for us a few minutes ago.

I'd rather not do it again, if that's all right, he said, rubbing his hand at the memory of the experience.

Oh, come on Muce. It couldn't have been that bad. And you got the feeling back in your hand almost right away, didn't you?

Well, yeah, Your Highness. But all the same, it wasn't much fun. Next time, we should probably use this fork thing that Uncle Mel made to make the lightning come out of the jar.

The blonde fighter picked up a tool with a wooden handle and two long metal prongs. He regarded it briefly. You know, I'm thinking something like that might be a way to cook sausages if you could keep cranking the handle to make enough lightning juice.

I doubt very much that's what the inventor had in mind, Kwestor said.

I'm sure something like this, once the idea is developed, could have many applications, the prince said with obvious excitement. He turned his attention to Trixie. That's actually why I asked for you. I'd like you to deliver a personal message to the man who designed this to invite him to be part of our new science center.

I'd be happy to, Your Highness.

There's more, said Kwestor ominously.

Trixie glanced questioningly at the aging ranger, but he said nothing else. She knew Kwestor tended to focus on the negative aspects of most things, so she tried to quell any apprehension about what initially sounded like a simple assignment. Still, she wondered what he meant.

It's really nothing, Donald countered with an exasperated eye roll toward the ranger. It's just that we already sent a letter to him through the normal Royal Constabulary relay chain. He never responded. That was before we built this device from his sketches, though, so it wasn't really a personal invitation, just more of a query to see if he might be interested.

What His Highness is concerned about is that he might not be interested, Kwestor added. And he'd like us to encourage him, if necessary.

Us?

Yes. He wants me to go with you, although from what I've heard of the man, you would have a much better chance of swaying him than I would.

I don't understand.

What Kwestor is implying is that our inventor is rumored to have a weakness for beautiful women, the prince said.

The word 'beautiful' echoed in Trixie's mind. Donald thinks I'm beautiful?

But, he continued, I don't mean for you to try to charm him or anything. I'd never ask you to do that. I wouldn't want you to. Just tell him about our new science center and what an honor it is to be asked to join. There are definite advantages to working alongside other talented people with common interests, and we can probably provide him with just about any equipment he might need and access to information he might not otherwise have. I don't know what else you can say, but you can honestly answer any questions he might have.

In other words, give him the hard sell, Kwestor translated.

No, that's… Well, yes, I suppose you could call it that, Prince Donald admitted. Based on what I see here, though, I think he would really be an asset. The king established the Westgrove Center for Scientific Advancement to learn about the natural world and to develop new technologies to improve the lives of everyone, and that's what I mean to do. I believe this man can help us.

You said he lives in Harvest Grove. Where at, specifically? Trixie asked.

Nooton. I know it's a long way away, and that's one of the reasons I'd like Kwestor to go along with you.

Part of Trixie appreciated his apparent concern for her welfare, but another part felt anxious because she feared it might imply a lack confidence in her ability to take care of herself. Armed escorts often accompanied messengers carrying important messages, though, so having Kwestor assigned to go with her probably signified nothing of the sort. She felt almost as if she needed to prove herself worthy of his trust, which she knew she already possessed.

Ignoring her confusing emotional reaction, she provided a response appropriate for a professional messenger. Nooton is about eight-hundred miles from Greatbridge. I can make it there in ten days.

Two weeks, said Kwestor. Remember, I'm coming with you.

She grinned at her older companion. Okay. Two weeks. But we can probably be there sooner. How long should we wait for a reply?

As long as it takes to get one, I suppose, the prince said. Hopefully he'll agree right away, but if he says 'no,' then I guess we'll have to accept that.

What's the man's name? You never said.

Didn't I? No, I guess I didn't. It's Benkin. Kwestor has a page with some other information about him.

Okay. I can leave as soon as I collect my gear. What about you, Kwestor?

Whenever you're ready, the ranger said in a slow monotone that suggested neither eagerness nor reluctance.

Well, may as well get started, then. She turned to leave, and Kwestor grabbed his pack from where it rested on the floor.

Thanks, Trixie, Donald said. I really appreciate this.

"I'm happy to do it, Your Highness,