"The Dog-Headed Demons of Okali"

"Dog-Headed Demons of Okali"

3/2-3/28/1214 DR

I.

Romal leaned on his roughly hewn staff and gazed in scowling perplexity at the mystery which spread silently before him. Many a deserted village Romal had seen in the months that had passed since he turned his face east from the Copper Coast and lost himself in the mazes of forest and river of Okali, but never one like this.

It was not famine that had driven away the inhabitants, for nearby the wild brown rice still grew rank and unkempt in the untilled fields. There were no Darthan slave-raiders in this unmapped land. It must have been a tribal war that devastated the village, Romal decided, as he gazed somberly at the scattered bones and grinning skulls that littered the space among the rank weeds and grasses. These bones were shattered and splintered, and Romal saw jackals and a hyena furtively slinking among the ruined huts. But why had the slayers left the spoils? There lay war spears, their shafts crumbling before the attacks of the red ants. There lay shields, moldering in the rains and sun. There lay the cooking pots, and about the neck-bones of a shattered skeleton glistened a necklace of gold and copper discs, and painted shells...surely rare loot for any savage conqueror.

He gazed suspiciously at the huts, wondering why the thatch roofs of so many were torn and rent, as if by taloned things seeking entrance. Then something made his cold eyes narrow in startled unbelief. Just outside the mouldering mound that was once the village wall towered a gigantic tree, branchless for sixty feet, its mighty bole too large to be gripped and scaled. Yet in the topmost branches dangled a skeleton, apparently impaled on a broken limb.

The cold hand of mystery touched the shoulder of Romal. How had those pitiful remains come to rest in that tree? Had some monstrous ogre's inhuman hand flung them there? Okali was rumored to be infested with many dangerous creatures not found anywhere else. Griffins, Manticores, Thunderbirds and Speaking Apes. Romal knew most legends had some kernel of truth at their core.

Romal shrugged his broad shoulders and his hand unconsciously touched the hilt of his long sword, and the dagged in his belt. Romal felt no fear as an ordinary man would feel when confronted with the Unknown and Nameless. A lifetime of wandering in strange lands and warring with strange creatures had melted away from him all that was not hard and unyielding. He was tall and powerfully built, nimble withyouth. Wide-shouldered, long-armed, with strength of a full-grown Troll and the speed of a Snake man, he was no less a natural-born killer than the strange predatory beasts of Okali.

The brambles and thorns of the forest had dealt hardly with him; his blue tunic and black pants hung in tatters, his travel cloak was torn and his boots of Signarm leather were scratched and worn. The sun had baked his skin to a deep bronze, but his broad sullen face was impervious to its rays. Under heavy black brows, his eyes glinted strangely, blue eyes with amber flecks in their depths. From the shaggy black hair, the distinct points of his ears showed. For Romal alone in the world bore traits of all Seven Races.

Sweeping the village once more with his searching gaze, the Mongrel pulled his swordbelt into a more accessible position, shifted to his left hand the rough staff he had fashioned from a fallen branch, and took up his way again.

To the west lay a strip of thin forest, sloping downward to a broad belt of savannas, a waving sea of grass waist-deep and deeper. Beyond that rose another narrow strip of woodlands, deepening rapidly into dense forest. Where Trolls dwelt. Out of that forest Romal had fled like a hunted wolf with the Tunnel-dwellers hot on his trail. Even now a vagrant breeze brought faintly the echo of a deep-chested roar which warned of its creator's hate and blood-hunger across miles of forest and grassland.

The memory of his flight and narrow escape was vivid in Romal's mind, for only the day before had he realized too late that he was in Troll-claimed country, and all that afternoon in the reeking stench of the thick forest, he had crept and run and hidden and doubled and twisted on his track with the fierce Tunnel-dwellers ever close behind him, until night fell and he gained and crossed the grasslands under cover of darkness.

Now in the late morning he had seen nothing, heard nothing of his pursuers, yet he had no reason to believe that they had abandoned the chase. They had been close on his heels when he took to the savannas.

So Romal surveyed the land in front of him. To the east, curving from north to south ran a straggling range of hills, for the most part dry and barren, rising in south to a jagged black skyline that reminded Romal of the black hills of neighboring Danarak. Between him and these hills stretched a broad expanse of gently rolling country, thickly treed, but nowhere approaching the density of a forest. Romal got the impression of a vast upland plateau, bounded by the curving hills to the east and by the savannas to the west.

Romal set out for the hills with his long, swinging, tireless stride. Surely somewhere behind him the hulking brutes were still after him, and he had no desire to be driven to bay. Within his Human-seeming body, Romal had the full strength of a Fighting Troll and the whiplash quickness of a Snake man. One on one, he could match any single opponent but not even Romal the Mongrel could win in a pitched battle with a whole tribe of the brutes.

The silent village with its burden of death and mystery faded out behind him. Utter silence reigned among these mysterious uplands where no birds sang and only a silent brown monkey flitted among the great trees. The only sounds were Romal's tread through the grass, and the whisper of the damp breeze.

And then Romal caught a glimpse among the trees that made his heart leap with a sudden, nameless horror, and a few moments later he stood before Horror itself, stark and grisly. In a wide clearing, on a rather bold incline stood a grim stake, and to this stake was bound a thing that had once been a living man. Romal had been spawned and raised by the cruel Darthim, for whom torture was a sport and a delight. He knew much of the fiendishness that Humans and Gelydrim could also display, but now he shuddered and grew sick. It was not so much the ghastliness of the mutilations that unsettled him so, but the sudden knowledge that the wretch still lived.

( the rest of the story )

"The AWOL Phone"

"The AWOL Phone"

A Trom Girl Mystery

10/15/2007

I.

As soon as the front door opened at her knock, Megan Salenger held up her leather billfold to reveal her credentials. "Porter Shimkus?" she asked.

"Yes, that's me." He peered past her at the couple standing on his porch. "Claudia? Mel? What's going on here?"

"Mr and Mrs Crosley have hired me to look into the murder of your wife," Megan said. "I am a licensed Private Investigator for the State and City of New York, as you can see. May we come?" She clapped the billfold shut and returned it to the inner breast pocket of her jacket.

"Huh? Oh, sure, sure." Shimkus stepped aside to allow the three entry into the rather cozy and cluttered living room. He was a rather too well fed man in his late fifties, wearing pajama bottoms and a white T-shirt on this Sunday morning. An unfortunately large and tuber-shaped nose did not distract from a pair of sharp analytic eyes.

Moving to flank Megan on either side, Claudia and Mel Crosley regarded Shinkus without warmth. The woman folded her arms and said, "It's been nearly a week and the police have been useless, absolutely useless. Mel and I do NOT intend to let poor JoAnna's murder become another cold case that ends up forgotten."

"Oh, I understand that," Shimkus replied. "They've been here a dozen times, looking under every piece of furniture and taking thousands of photos but for what? So I can see why you might bring someone in on this. Although to be honest, Miss Salenger, you look more like a college student than a hard-boiled detective."

"I am twenty-eight, you may see my credentials again if you wish." It was true that the Trom Girl seemed younger than her years. Only five feet three and slim, her narrow inquisitive face under a tousled shock of black hair had the alertness and intensity of youth. She moved across the living room and through the kitchen beyond to gaze out of the back door at a metal drum standing on the lawn.

Porter Shimkus had followed her and saw where she was looking. "I'm not sure what I can tell you that I haven't already told the police a thousand times over. Claudia and Mel can agree with that. Every second of that day, every word we said, every move we made, has been gone over many times."

"Yes. I spent much of yesterday discussing the case with Lt Joseph Montez of Homicide and with your in-laws," Megan said, turning away from the door. "Perhaps everyone would like to be seated. I have some tentative conclusions I wish to share."

Rearranging the scattered SUNDAY TIMES into a rough pile, Shimkus gestured for Mr and Mrs Crosley to take the couch, whil3e he settled into an overstuffed recliner and moved an empty coffee mug out of the way.

Mel Crosley spoke for the first time. "I had heard of Miss Salenger because of her work with the Kenneth Dred Foundation. My law clerk work had made me familiar with their excellent record and with hers. Claudia and I contacted her and she agreed to investigate."

Megan remained standing, moving to the center of the room where she could watch everyone. "Please correct me if my understanding of events is inaccurate. Last Tuesday at four-thirty PM, Mr and Mrs Crosley arrived here to take you and your wife to dinner. Mrs Shimkus was in the house but you were in the back yard burning leaves and stray branches in that barrel."

"Yes. Yes, that's correct. It's quite legal, you know."

"Local ordinances allow the practice between October 1st and March 31st," she replied. "You said your wife should be ready at any second. A loud woman's scream was heard coming from within this house. The three of you ran in to find Darlene Shimkus lying dead at the foot of the stairs right there. A long thin knife had been driven into her heart."

"Oh God. No matter how many times I hear the details, they still hurt," Shimkus moaned.

"Stop pretending!" snapped Claudia. "You two were miserable together. You've hated each other for years. Don't think everyone doesn't know about that bleached blonde slut you've been seeing."

"Well, Darlene didn't care. All she wanted was reach the end of still another wine bottle as soon as possible. Yes, we fought. Our marriage was a failure. But that doesn't mean I don't have feelings, for God's sake."

Megan interrupted, still restrained and analytical. "The police arrived quickly but made little progress. The cheap unremarkable knife could have purchased in any dollar store. There was almost no blood from the clean insertion, no signs of a struggle. The front door was ajar but no prints were found anywhere."

"So far, you've got everything straight," Shimkus admitted. For ten hours, the police searched the house and made us repeat our stories over and over until it was hard not to scream."

"That's their way of trying to catch you in a detail that doesn't match." Megan glanced over at the rear door again. At one point, Lt Montez said that the burning leaves should not be left unattended. You went outside and placed a metal lid over the barrel to suffocate the fire. Is that right?"

"Yeah, I guess. I mean, I was in a daze at that point, shocked at everything. They had covered Darlene up at the point and EMTs were getting ready to carry her out to an ambulance."

The Trom Girl nodded. "What interests me is that your wife's phone has not been found."

"That again? The cops keep mentioning it. I don't know where she left the damn thing. What difference does a phone going AWOL matter?"

From the couch, Claudia put in, "She never let that phone get out of reach. Between Facebook and Twitter and God knows what else, she was always checking it out."

"I understand that you called your sister at four-fifteen that day?" asked Megan.

"Yes. We said we were on our way and she said she was working on her hair. That.. that was the last thing my baby sister ever said to me, such a trivial detail to be remembered by."

"As it is now stands, the police are going on the assumption that while you three were i the back yard, an unknown person entered through the front door to kill Darlene Shimkus and immediately run back outside again. None of the neighbors who have been contacted saw any such person on the street at that time."

Shimkus started to get up, but sank back down dejectedly into the chair. "I figure the killer snatched up Darlene's phone but for what reason I can't imagine."

"I agree," Megan said. "The murderer did take her phone. But he did not leave the house."

( the rest of the story )