Songreaver by Andrew Hunter Page A

fortune," she said,
handing the parchment back.
    "Yeah, I guess," Garrett said, "but I think I
know where Caleb is, and I was on my way to pick him up now."
    Marla grinned. "Can I come with you?" she
asked.
    "Yeah," Garrett said, "should we bring
Ghausse?"
    "No, he can stay in the back of the shop
until I get back," she said, "He should have plenty to eat."
    "You keep wolf food here?" Garrett asked.
    Marla hesitated. "Not exactly," she
whispered, looking around the shop at all the empty cages.
    "Oh," Garrett said.
    ****
    Garrett looked down at the address that
Cenick had transcribed for him, and checked it again. He looked at
Marla. “This is the right place,” he said, “I think.” He stood,
looking up at a gilded placard, depicting a needle and thread,
above an ornately carved wooden door bearing the name of Claudian Marigold, Master Tailor .
    Marla smiled. “Let’s go in,” she said. She
wore a sapphire blue cape with a lace collar over her gray
coveralls, and a floppy blue hat shielded her face from the gray
light of day. When she smiled, she could almost pass for any of the
other light-deprived young ladies shopping along the lane.
    Garrett, however, was glad to step into the
tailor’s shop to escape the stares cast his way by the well-to-do
of Wythr’s Upper City. The exiled nobility and wealthy merchants of
the city seemed to have already lost whatever patriotic zeal still
lingered among the Lower City folk regarding the heroes of the
Northern Campaign.
    The warm, golden light of glass oil lamps
filled the shop within. Long racks of fine clothing hung to either
side of the door, with a narrow lane leading between them to the
counter at the back of the room. A rotund, red-faced man with a
wreath of wispy white hair around his bald pate looked up from a
bolt of lavender silk he was unrolling on the counter before him.
He smiled a broad, honest smile and nodded his head in
greeting.
    “Good day!” the man said, setting aside the
bolt of cloth and hurrying around the counter to meet them. He had
the slightly wobbly gait of a man with perpetually tired feet.
    “Good day,” Marla returned his greeting,
crossing her hands over her chest and bowing slightly.
    The tailor’s eyes widened a little and he
stopped abruptly, giving them both a surprisingly graceful bow. “My
Lady,” he said.
    “Mister Marigold?” Garrett asked.
    The tailor straightened. “At your service,
young master,” he said, the smile returning to his face.
    “I, um,” Garrett hesitated, scanning the shop
for any sign of Caleb, or anyone else at all. It seemed empty but
for the racks and racks of expensive suits and coats.
    “We are looking for a… friend of ours,” Marla
said, “that may have been, accidentally sold to you at an
auction.”
    Marigold looked confused, then his face went
suddenly pale. “Oh, no!” he gasped, “I knew that it had to be a
mistake!”
    “A mistake?” Garrett said, “Is Caleb all
right?”
    Marigold blinked. “Caleb? Is that his
name?”
    “Yeah,” Garrett said, “though actually his
real name was Kurtz , I think, before he died.”
    A low moan came from somewhere in the back of
the shop.
    “Caleb?” Garrett called out.
    The moan answered, louder now.
    Mister Marigold gave them both a pained look.
“I’ll take you to him,” he sighed.
    He led them through a small door behind a
curtain into an extremely cluttered back room. There, among the
stacked bolts of cloth and spools of thread, stood Caleb the
zombie, draped from head to toe in a half-finished suit of powder
blue silk.
    Caleb turned his milky eyes to Garrett with a
piteous expression of relief and groaned again.
    “Hi, Caleb,” Garrett said.
    Caleb lifted his hands stiffly from his sides
with a long ribbon of measuring tape draped over his left shoulder
and down to his wrist.
    Garrett stifled a laugh. Marla hid her smile
with the back of her hand.
    “I’m not in trouble, am I?” Marigold
asked.
    “Huh?” Garrett said, “Oh no! It