Cannibal Dwarf Detective: An Ephemeral Beardening by Hunter Wiseman, Hayden Wiseman Page B

stretches
the length of the room. The assistant leaves so he isn’t murdered because let’s
face it that would happen.
    Armando inhales hard and coughs up
all the smoke.
    “Forget everything you saw in the
bathroom yesterday,” he says.
    “Forgotten,” Jeac says. “So what’s
up?”
    “You were gone for a long time,”
Armando replies. “You have to start all over again with the investigation.
Square one. Forget everything you think you know. You’re still Feac as far as
the Tower is concerned, but you’re an Ephemeral Peacekeeper now. Everyone is
getting suspicious of your true identity. There have been way too many
coincidences.”
    Armando takes another puff from his
pipe.
    “We’re running out of time. No more
distractions, you hear me?”
    Jeac stares blankly out the window.
    “Huh? Oh… Yes. You can count on me,”
he says.
    Armando seems uncertain of whether
Jeac is listening or not, but continues to talk anyway.
    “We’re actually very surprised that
you made it out of that Sharkano alive, my dad and I. No one has ever done
that, Jeac. Anyway, I need you to go up to the Graevelay Mountains. There has
been some strange activity and we need someone to check it out. So do that and
report back to me as soon as possible.”
    “I have a quick question before I go.”
    Jeac hops off the laundry basket and
looks sternly toward Armando as he backs up towards the door.
    “Go ahead,” Armando says. He keeps
smoking his pipe and speaks between inhalations.
    “I know you said not to talk about it
but-“
    “Jeac,” Armando says. “Don’t.”
    “Do you peel it back like a banana or
is it just like-“
    Armando throws his pipe at Jeac who
ducks out the door before it hits him. He stands there giggling while he hears
lots of smashing and cursing and then silence followed by a heavy sigh.
    The dwarf is now on his way down the
tower and on his way to the Graevelay Mountains. Chandakas suns rise and set.
Jeac gallops gracefully through the desert for a long while and sees no sign of
any mountains. He grows weary and sits down to rest, he watches the suns set in
the distance.
    As nightfall engulfs Chandaka, the
setting sun bleeds around what appear to be mountains.
    “The Graevelays!” shouts an uplifted
Jeac.
    Half the night goes by because Jeac
is slowly walking and has a general fear that he might lose the mountains. As
he grows nearer, much commotion can be heard from within. Very faint, but to
the sharp ears of a dwarf it is like being stung by wasps.
    Jeac struggles up the mountain. Once
at the top, he wipes the sweat off his brow with his now certifiably toxic
beard. As he rests for a moment a flickering fire can be seen dancing from the
back of a tunnel to his left. He walks closer and to the right he can see
stairs dropping off into the darkness of the mountain. They seem to go on for
miles.
    Another light can be seen towards the
bottom though. He reckons it must be some sort of beacon fire.
    He hugs the wall as he lowers his leg
carefully to the first step. Jeac inadvertently misjudges the distance between
steps and falls head over buttocks down the old hard stone plates. Four hundred
hours pass before he smacks down to the last step and rolls out into the center
of the room.
    The dwarf rolls onto his back and
groans in pain. The last beacon resides in front of him and reveals a giant
stone door. Jeac, still spread out on the floor, jerks his head back in a
jerking motion like a jerk and sees hieroglyphics scrawled across the archway.
    “Fearless Giant,” he reads on the
carved stone.
    He rolls over and reads some more.
    “One Thousand Strong.”
    Our courageous dwarf jumps to his
feet, waddles over to the enormous stone and simply knocks. Nothing happens at
first but after a few moments a gravelly voice can be heard from the other
side.
    “Who’s there?” it asks.
    Jeac presses his ear to the door.
    “Uh, me,” he says.
    “Me who?” asks the voice.
    Jeac steps back from the door and
scans