Limpit Muskin & Company

Limpit couldn't even be sure that the Earl's niece was still alive. Morgan had one month's bail, and if the Earl did not set eyes on his niece within that time, then the Spellreader was for the chop. Not that Limpit was an ardent human rights campaigner. Slaves were expensive commodities, but emotional blackmail was relatively cheap, and Limpit knew its value all right. Limpit was fond of the Spellreader, in his own way, but he thought that Morgan could be very useful to him, and now he was in Limpit's debt, emotionally and financially, as Morgan himself realised well enough. Morgan did not realise quite how bad this was, though - Limpit charged interest at an hourly rate.

'We could always go adventuring?' Morgan suggested. 'You know, the honest hard graft of slaying dragons, avoiding devilishly difficult traps, rescuing maidens from high towers, and all that stuff.'

Limpit stared at Morgan in disgust.

'I think you're forgetting that the odds of us actually surviving a proper adventure rate somewhere below the existence of little blue men, talking lemmings, and intelligent life found on Butwin.'

'Oh, come on, Limpit! We'll be heroes! Women will be throwing themselves at us! We'll be rich beyond our wildest dreams! There'll be feasts, and parties, and orgies! Yes, huge orgies, with millions of well-oiled young virgins to obey our every whim.'

Limpit interrupted Morgan's fantasy before it got all gooey.

'Morgan, you're drooling!' he said. 'Anyway, what good is all that if we're dead? No, we need a more practical solution. Our cash-flow is at crisis point, and I'm not sure how long I can keep putting everything on credit. One month of this and the bailiffs will be called in, and you know what the bailiffs are like: they don't so much go around knocking on doors asking people to settle up as go right through the door, slay the occupants, and pillage what they can. They make the most uncouth Ogre look like pleasant company for an evening of drinks and after-dinner chit-chat.'

Morgan wasn't finished though.

'I could always read up some gold!' he enthused. 'You know, using some of my more powerful spells.'

Morgan awaited Limpit's response to this latest suggestion with hopeful expectancy.

'I think I'd rather face the bailiffs, if that's all the same with you,' Limpit said, crushing the Spellreader's mindless, but fragile, optimism.

'Your reputation as one of the world's most unreliable readers of spells is not without foundation. You've managed to make the Earl's niece vanish to God knows where, you caused the inhabitants of Blackbrook to sprout huge beards - it wouldn't have been so bad if there actually were some men in the village at the time - and you deep-fried the Archdeacon Paisley III alive!'

Morgan looked defensive.

'You know full well that the disappearance of the Earl's niece was nothing to do with my spells, and as for the others, they were the intended results! That Archdeacon,' he spat, 'did call me a womanising scoundrel and a dishonourable braggart with all the manners of a mouldy goat.'

'Weren't you in bed with his wife at the time?' Limpit countered.

'Well, technically speaking, I suppose I was, yes,' Morgan admitted.

'And his brother!' Limpit added.

'Okay, okay, I won't read any spells then. Can we please change the subject now?'

'And the whole New Church Choir.'

'I said OKAY!'

'Heh heh!' Limpit cackled.