12 October 2026
Welcome back! We remind our readers that in last installment from the third book of The Redemption series, The Morgle Unmasked, Tevvy had reached the village of Kilnar, sending the deranged merchant to the local kailu and entering an inn called the Jakal. There, after sharing some news with the inn’s patrons, he learns more of the evil reputation the inn bearing the image of a morgle has among the local folk. This week he enters this inn to learn more about it, and who would name his inn after the morgle. . . . (11 April 2016) The full ebook version of this book is available for purchase from all ebook sellers. We remind all that the first book in this series, Chosen of the One, and the second book, Staff of Shigmar, are both free from Smashwords! Glossary links: Book 3, Book 2, Book 1
Chapter 4, Part 3
Tevvy slid into the crowd now moving down the street, although some of them stopped at the Jakal, walking with the others until a group stopped outside the Beast. When they entered the inn, Tevvy allowed himself to be drawn along, as if he were part of the group. Once inside, he slid sideways into the shadows, quickly scanning the room. He smiled when he saw the mercenary that had been with Merik sitting by himself, hollow-eyed with more streaks in the dirt on his face. Tevvy moved carefully in that direction, eyes still scanning the room.
“Friend,” Tevvy said, “can I buy you more ale?”
Jarell looked up from his empty mug and took a moment to focus on Tevvy’s face. “Who are you?” he asked his voice slow.
“You left your employer, Merik, rather suddenly, in my care,” Tevvy replied, “on the bridge just north of town, not that I minded, too much, but the reason for your sudden departure interested me. So I thought I would look you up, buy you a drink, and maybe learn more,” he finished with an innocent smile.
“Did he send you? Wants me to go back to that accursed swamp? Never!” Jarell exclaimed, slamming his mug down on the table.
“Easy, friend,” Tevvy soothed. He waved for the barmaid, who was passing nearby, an older, heavyset wetha, whose nose was large, red, and constantly running. “A refill for my friend here,” Tevvy said, and he dropped an argentu into her open hand; her eyes widened when she caught sight of the silver, “and keep it full, if you please.”
She grinned down at Tevvy, revealing missing teeth and slopping ale into Jarell’s empty mug. “Can I get you anything, kind sir?” she asked.
“Not just yet,” Tevvy replied, smiling up at her, “maybe later.”
Jarell noticed his mug had been refilled, so he took a long drink, spilling most of it. “Oh, why did we go? I knew it wasn’t right . . . knew we shoulda’ stayed home, but she said we just needed one more trip . . . one more lousy trip!” he shouted the last phrase, again slamming his mug down, slopping ale onto the table.
“You seem distraught, friend,” Tevvy noted in a kindly voice. “Was she lost to the swamp creatures?”
Jarell’s look answered the question without words; he tossed back the mug and drank the rest of the ale, tears running freely down his cheeks.
“Your wife?” Tevvy asked carefully.
Jarell shook his head. “One more stinking, rotten, lousy, cursed trip! Then we could buy the little farm we wanted, get married, and raise a family!”
Cautiously, Tevvy slipped one hand into the pouch at his belt; his fingers sought a particular small vial, carefully touching the mark on each until he found the one he sought. Meanwhile, he tried to keep talking to Jarell. “I’m so sorry for you, and I know this might not be the best time to ask, but anything you can tell me about what happened might help prevent others from suffering the same fate, as I’m sure you would not want . . . , and her name was?” he asked, slipping the vial out of his belt pouch.
“Marie, her name was Marie,” he sobbed.
“Marie,” Tevvy repeated, “a beautiful name, for a beautiful girl, no doubt.”
Jarell’s eyes lit up, tears glistening on his cheeks; the barmaid came by to refill his mug, and Tevvy picked up the mug before she reached it, tipping some of the powder from the vial in his palm into the mug as she started to pour. He handed the mug back to Jarell.
“So that Marie’s sacrifice is not in vain, tell me what happened when you reached the edge of the swamp. I heard that the creatures seemed to have been waiting for you?” Tevvy prompted.
Jarell drank from his mug, then nodded. “They were waiting on the road, blocking it, a dozen of them. We had expected trouble, so we were ready. We attacked. We outnumbered them, so we cut them down easily. We were warned by the seklesem that we had to finish them off by burning them, so we went back to the wagons to fetch the oil we had brought for that purpose. We were just dumping oil on them when we were attacked by four times as many from all sides.” He stopped and took another long drink from his mug, and Tevvy smiled inwardly, knowing the drug would soon take effect. “We tried to fight them off but there were too many. We could not get the oil lit in time. The others started to rise, tripled in number. We started to fall. I turned to help Merik. I heard Marie scream. I . . . I . . . I came too late.” He drank the rest of his ale, tears streaming from his eyes. The noise of the Beast’s common room dulled around them; Tevvy’s eyes continued to search the room, coming back to Jarell to see if the drug had taken effect. A few minutes later, Tevvy saw that his eyes had dried and were no longer focused on the room, or the empty mug that now rested on the table in Jarell’s limp fingers.
“Jarell,” Tevvy said in a firm but quiet voice, “that cut on your arm and shoulder needs attention. Do you know Kilnar’s healer?”
“Yes,” came the slow reply.
“I want you to go to him, ask him to heal your arm, and tell him that you need to rest. You can tell him about Marie, if you like, and ask him to help you heal. Go now, Jarell.”
Jarell stood, turned toward the door, then he walked slowly past the tables and patrons, and out of the door. Tevvy sighed and picked up the empty mug, climbed onto his chair and started to sing in his loudest, most slurred voice: “Oh! My girl! She’s a fancy looker!” He waved the empty mug around, spilling the last drops and swaying wildly on the stool. “But they tell me! She’s just a hook–” and his feet appeared to slip off his chair; he fell forward onto the table, rolled off onto Jarell’s recently vacated chair, then rolled onto the floor under the table, landing on his stomach and letting the mug skid across the floor. He lay still, listening to the roars of laughter. When the laughter died away, he crept across the floor under the tables and between the legs to where a purse dangled, inviting cutting. His dagger flashed and the pouch dropped into his waiting hand; he crawled to the next table where a leather thong dangled from another belt and quickly tied the cut purse to its new, although temporary, owner, then he crawled back to his table. He turned onto his back and kicked his chair over, then pulled himself drunkenly to his feet, looking around bleary-eyed. He smiled stupidly at the people who were laughing at him, then he staggered off in the direction of the wethi whose purse he had moved to a new owner, humming the same bawdy tune.
He swayed into the wethi’s chair, catching his balance on the back. “Sorry, friend,” he slurred, “I think I’ve had enough for tonight,” and he let his head fall onto his chest, then he whispered to the wethi. “Don’t move friend, but I just saw the guy to your left, wearing the blue-striped hat, steal your purse, and that is why I put on the act, in order to warn you.” He lifted his head. “I think the door was that way,” he slurred drunkenly, pointing toward the bar, then he staggered in that direction. The wethi acted predictably: one hand felt for his purse, and, finding it missing, he stood up and went straight to the wethi Tevvy had pointed out, tapping him on the shoulder.
“Excuse me,” he said, “but I see you have my purse hanging from your belt.”
The wethi accused looked up, then stood up. Both wethem were quite large. “What did you say?” he asked, flexing his hands.
The first wethi pointed to the purse. “That’s my purse on your belt,” he said.
“Are you accusing me?”
“Hey, Krale! Come and tell him that it’s my purse,” he said, pointing again. “See the ‘O’ stitched into the leather?”
Krale stood and moved next to his friend, looking at the purse; Tevvy staggered up next to the end of the bar, watching out of the corner of his eye. The attention of everyone in the room had turned to the wethem standing. “Yep,” Krale said, “that is definitely your purse: I’d recognize that stitching a mile away.”
“He took my purse,” the first wethi said, pointing angrily.
“Are you accusing me of stealing your purse?” the second said, grabbing the purse and yanking it free from the thong. He held it up in front of his face. Then he shook his head. “This is not my purse, and since it is not my purse, and you claim to be missing yours, I am forced to conclude that the purse is yours.” He held out the purse, but as the first wethi reached out to take it, the second let it fall to the floor. “Whoops, how clumsy of me!”
Tevvy cursed, and had just picked up a mug from the bar, intending on throwing it at the first wethi, but the second finally did what Tevvy had wanted him to do all along. As the first bent over to retrieve his purse, mumbling, the second kneed him in the face, sending him reeling backward into and breaking the table at which he had been sitting. Krale tried to retaliate, but the second wethi was waiting for him, dodging the wild swing and turning Krale around, sending him hurtling into another table. The second wethi started to turn, fully intent on sitting down, when the first wethi crashed into him, and the two of them fell onto a third table, bringing a third group into the fight. At this point Tevvy slipped behind the bar, vacated by the innkeeper, and before the fourth table was broken, the small thief slipped into the inn’s back room, closing the door softly behind him.
Tevvy looked around the dirty kitchen and saw the fat, pimply cook just turning from where he ladled lumpy stew into bowls, having heard the sounds coming from the inn’s common room. “Where’s your servant?” Tevvy shouted at him.
This startled the cook. “What?”
“Your servant?” Tevvy shouted again. “A brawl has broken out in the common room! All hands on deck!” Tevvy shouted and pointed toward the common room.
The cook shouted for his servant, then ran through the door still holding the ladle dripping lumpy stew. A dirty boy came up out of the cellar a second later, and Tevvy jerked his head toward the door to the common room, where the sounds of violence had increased. The boy grabbed a wooden mallet from the counter and followed his master into the fray. Tevvy smiled and quickly searched the room, not expecting to find anything, but his father always taught him to be thorough. He paused before descending into the cellar, making sure that the brawl was still in full swing. The cellar was filthier than he had expected, with rats nesting in all the corners, and barrels of ale open. He pushed the drowned rat aside so he could inspect the first barrel more closely, and he saw, then felt, a residue dried around the top of the barrel just above the level of the ale. He took out a small, empty vial and scraped some of the residue carefully into the vial, using the blade of a dagger, then took out a second for a sample of the ale. Knowing that his window of opportunity might be closing soon, he quickly examined the walls and shelves, found a hidden catch, and opened a secret door into a small room. He wished Blakstar were here so he could point to this and say, “This is why you need me; this is why the others failed to find anything.” He grabbed one of the torches off the cellar wall and slipped into the room; it was empty, and the sandy floor had been raked smooth. Tevvy quickly examined the room, but found nothing to indicate its purpose; he used the crude rake leaning by the entrance and raked the floor smooth again. He closed the secret door and erased all traces that he had been in the cellar or opened the door. As he was climbing the stairs, he stopped, suddenly thinking that it had all been a little too easy. He crept silently back up the stairs, not entering the inn’s kitchen until he was sure there was no one there. From the sounds, the fight was still going on, although dying down, so he went over by the fire, picked up one of the cook’s dirty rags, lit it, then dropped it into a bucket filled with dirty linen. He cracked open the door to the common room and slipped inside. The cook’s servant was fighting next to the bar.
“Kitchen drudge!” Tevvy shouted at him, and when the boy turned around, Tevvy said, “Is that smoke coming from the kitchen?”
The boy turned and saw smoke. “Fire! Fire!” he shouted, causing all heads in the common room to turn toward the boy.
This had the effect Tevvy desired. In the mayhem that followed, Tevvy sauntered out the front door, walking casually back to the Jakal’s Grin as the sun went down.
On Wednesday we will begin a new chapter and return to Klaybear, Klare, and Rokwolf as Tevvy finishes his report rather abruptly. Until then, we remind all that the first two books of this series, Chosen of the One and Staff of Shigmar, are free from Smashwords. Get this book, The Morgle Unmasked, from the links provided. Good reading!
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