There was no mistaking it this time. It was a scream.
I bolted out the door. Down the street, hang a right, down to the end of the block, and stop-in the meager candlelight afforded by the streetlamp, I could see the body sprawled in front of the apothecary's.
The authorities arrived within the half-hour and consisted of Mayor Patterson and a handful of nightwatchmen. One of the watchmen accosted me just inside the apothecary shoppe. He whipped out a small notebook and a pencil and proceeded to interrogate me.
"You found the body, correct?" he asked.
"Yes," I replied.
"Where did you find it?"
"Right where it is now."
"Right here?" he asked, pointing to the corpse that had once been known as Kessler.
"Well, maybe a little to the left..." I could practically hear the squealing of the gears in his head as he tried to think that one through. "Just kidding."
"And your name is?"
"I am the Avatar."
"You're--you're the Avatar?"
I nodded.
"Can I have your autograph?" he asked, holding out his notebook to me.
"Badgering the watchmen again, Avatar?" Patterson demanded as he walked over. "Oh, hell. Kessler." He bent down to get a closer look at the body. Kessler was lying face up on the ground with two deep stab wounds in his chest.
Another watchman walked up to brief Patterson on the findings so far. "It looks like simple robbery, sir. Someone came by, saw that Kessler was working late, knew he kept a large supply of silver snake venom for research, and killed him for it."
"It's a damn shame," Patterson commented.
"I disagree," I said.
"It's not a damn shame?"
"No, I don't think stealing snake venom was the true intent of the culprit. If the motive was purely robbery, why wouldn't the locked box of cash in the desk drawer have been taken as well?"
Patterson stepped over to the desk and examined the box, which was being dusted for fingerprints. "Forgive me for asking, Avatar, but how do you know about it?"
"I used to sell him vials of snake venom I found on my adventures. He always paid me out of that box."
Patterson thought for a moment. "I think you're right," he said. "Aside from the screams that the neighbors heard, there's no sign of a struggle. It seems like too much trouble to go through just for a few vials of venom, especially when a large amount of cash was in easy reach. Something's definitely not right. I need someone with experience to handle this. Someone with lots of practice in rooting out evil and defending the moral image of Britannia. Will you take the case, Avatar?"
I knew he was going to ask that. Could you do this, Avatar? Would you mind doing that, Avatar? Find that, solve this, save Britannia from the hordes of evil, Avatar. Like I have nothing better to do with my time. Oh, well. Why not? Kessler was a friend. I probably owed it to him.
About 8:30 the next morning, Jesse came in and opened all the windows. I hate that. I tried to explain to him that I kept the shutters closed for a reason, but he just blabbed on in that silly falsetto about the play he was in. What in the name of the eight virtues possessed Raymundo to cast Jesse as me? He looks nothing like me, and as for acting... retch. However, I must admit that he does look better in heels than I do.
I lived in Sentri's place in Britain city. Sentri didn't seem to mind. He was quite happy shacked up in my room at the Wayfarer's Inn. I was even happier--I had his whole trainer's gym to myself. I didn't originally intend to abuse his hospitality to such an extent, but... well... an Avatar needs her space. It all started back when Iolo, Spark, and I were in the early stages of tracking down Christopher's and Inamo's killers. We were in Britain with sore backs and sore feet and needed someplace to ditch all our extra stuff, so we collectively adopted Sentri's house. We let him join our quest, of course, but frankly, we only used him for his storage space.
The house was now more or less mine. My clothes were strewn all over the bedroom, my swamp boots were under the table in the gym, and the rest of the place was filled to bursting with my books and potted plants. And the stuffed dragon I won from Carrocio was sitting on top of the bureau. I gave its head a friendly squeeze.
The front door banged open and Dupre sauntered in, carrying his sword. "Hey, Avatar."
"Hey, Dupre."
"You mind?" asked Dupre, gesturing towards the dummy in the back of the room.
"Nah, go on. Knock yourself out."
Sentri walked in.
"Hello, ma'am," he greeted me.
"Hi, Sentri," I answered.
"I was wondering..."
"Yes?"
"Well, since you solved the thing with Batlin and the Guardian and all, and since you don't really need a big place to keep all your adventuring stuff handy anymore, I was wondering, maybe... Can I have my house back?"
Dupre stopped beating on the dummy long enough to glare at him.
I smiled gently, batted my eyelashes, and put my hand on Sentri's arm. "Well you see, sweetie, I still need this place. While Batlin isn't around anymore, he's still not dead. I'm expecting that any day now, L.B.'s going to call me into his throne room and ask me to track him down."
"Well, you know, Avatar--"
"Pardon?"
"Er, sorry, ma'am-that could be a long ways away, and I'd really like to be able to train people in here again..."
I smiled again. "I'll need a few strong, trustworthy people to help me find Batlin, of course," I said. "You can come if you want."
"Really?"
"Sure. I don't see why not. Right, Dupre?"
"Right," said Dupre. "Now go away and leave us alone."
"Okay, sure," said Sentri. "You'll get back to me on that quest thing, right?"
"You got it." I gave him the thumbs-up.
"Okay, bye!" And he left.
"Chump," muttered Dupre.
"Ssh," I said.
At about noontime, Dupre and I moseyed on over to the Blue Boar. Shamino was already there, at our usual table in the back. We met there every day for lunch. Except for Iolo, we all lived in Britain. Iolo went back to his house in Yew after the episode with the Guardian was over. None of us argued. He was getting a bit old for the adventure shtick, after all.
Instead of looking up to greet us when we came in the door, Shamino sank further down into his ale.
"What's wrong, Shammy?" I asked as we sat down.
"Amber," he mumbled into his tankard.
Dupre's eyebrows shot up. "Women troubles?" he asked. "What'd she do, throw you out?"
Shamino started to sob. I put my arm around him and mouthed, "Nice going," to Dupre. "What happened?" I asked Shamino.
"She said she was starting to think that I didn't love her anymore. She said I was never home, that I was always out with you guys on a quest somewhere. She said if I really loved her I'd stop all that, and I told her, 'That's what I do. That's my job.' But she wouldn't listen. She told me I had to get a real job, that being an adventurer was no career for me..."
Dupre started to chuckle. I kicked him in the leg under the table.
"And then--and then she said that it was either you guys or her, and I said, 'You don't understand. They're my friends. They've saved my life more times than I can remember.' And then she told me to leave." He broke down into tears.
I tried my best to console him. "It's okay, Shami," I said. "If she really loved you, she would have understood how much your friends mean to you."
"I suppose you're right," he mumbled.
Dupre scratched his chin. "Ahhh, so Amber's available now... OW!"
Shamino and I both kicked him.
"Sorry," he said, rubbing his ankle.
Suddenly, the door flew open and Iolo rushed in. He was out of breath, as if he had run all the way from Yew. His white hair was standing straight out from his head like a corona, giving him a wild look.
"Avatar! Thank heaven! Something terrible has happened," he declared.
Iolo briefed us on the events in Yew as we walked towards the hitching post where he had left Smith.
"Perrin was murdered," he told us. "He was found early this morning, stabbed in the heart. I came to get you as soon as I could. I'm afraid I had to push Smith rather hard to make haste."
An ordinary looking brown horse standing by the hitching post glared at Iolo as he said this.
"I said I was sorry!" Iolo yelled.
The horse snorted and resumed eating from a nearby feedbox.
"Why the rush?" I asked. "Surely the local authorities could have dealt with it."
Iolo grabbed my arm and pulled me close as he whispered, "A Fellowship candelabra was found by the body."
"What?" exclaimed Shamino, momentarily lapsing out of his melancholy.
"A Fellowship candelabra, like the ones that were used back when Batlin was around. It even had all the proper symbols on it. And it was lit," he added in a barely audible whisper.
Another horse wandered over to Smith's feedbox and proceeded to partake of its contents.
"You have your own feedbox! Use it!" Smith snapped.
The other horse looked at him docilely and continued to munch.
"Gelding!"
"Smith, Smith! Calm down, boy," said Dupre.
"Bugger off," retorted Smith.
I kept my attention focused on Iolo. "Perrin's body wasn't staked out, was it? You remember, with the four candles at the hands and the feet..."
"No, no," he replied. "Only the candelabra was the same. Perrin was found lying on his side, stabbed a couple times in the heart."
"Kessler," I said.
Iolo gave me a confused look. "Gesundheit?" he ventured.
"Kessler the Apothecary was murdered as well. I found him last night by his shoppe, stabbed in the heart. No Fellowship paraphernalia was lying around."
"Do you think they're connected?" he asked.
"I'd have to see the other body. We should go to Yew."
Iolo looked around at the three of us, and then at Smith.
"Don't even think it," said Smith.
"Well, you can still carry someone."
"There's no way in hell I'm walking all the way back to Yew, much less while carrying one of you."
In the end, it was decided that we would hire a wagon and a team of horses. Shamino drove, and Smith rode in the back with the rest of us. This was largely due to the fact that Iolo was an old softie. He refused to let Dupre threaten to make Smith into glue if he wouldn't walk like a normal horse.
While that argument was going on, I took the liberty of running over to the apothecary's and looking again to see if there were any signs of the Fellowship that I missed. There were none at all. However, on the way back, I overheard a piece of conversation between two New Fellowship members standing outside the hall. Immediately after the meeting last night, the leaders, Klog and Ellen, had left Britain for Yew to speak with the denizens there about opening up a New Fellowship hall. Two murders, two cities, two suspects in the correct time and place. It was too big a lead to overlook. I asked the speakers, after apologizing for eavesdropping, if they knew where Klog and Ellen were now. They weren't sure. Damn.
The New Fellowship had arisen like a lame phoenix from the ashes of the old one. After the tide of revulsion and hate mail generated by the discovery of the sinister plottings of the inner circle subsided, people began to realize that the Fellowship was actually a good idea. Not as Batlin and his cronies conceived it, of course, but as a means to create community spirit and goodwill towards thy neighbor, the Fellowship was a blessing. Of the few leaders who remained, Klog and Ellen of Trinsic assumed control of the organization after Batlin disappeared. Most of the others, Rankin and Elynor for example, had left the Fellowship in either shame or disgust. Not Klog and Ellen, though. They were either too power-hungry or too stupid to let go of the opportunity to head the New Fellowship. They were appointed the new leaders with the grace and goodwill of Lord British, narrowly beating out Feridwyn and Brita, the heads of the Fellowship Shelter in Paws.
The New Fellowship was based on pretty much the same principles as the old one, except for that part about killing the non-believers. However, to conform with the people's strict orders on that subject, they also included quite a bit about the moral goodness of upholding the virtues, and dispensed with all the trappings of the previous Fellowship, such as the purple triangles and the candelabras.
And now, an old Fellowship candelabra had been found near a murder victim. What could this mean? Considering that the new leaders were in town at the time of the murder, it looked almost like an act of terrorism. Or like someone was trying to give the New Fellowship a bad reputation by reminding everyone of the old one. Assuming that Klog and Ellen didn't do it themselves, of course. But did they?
We arrived in Yew after dusk and spent the night at Iolo's. Aside from the occasional howl of a prowling wolf and Dupre's reverberating snore, all was quiet. In the morning, we went to the Abbey to see Aimi about the murder.
Aimi was very upset about the possibility that the New Fellowship was involved. Ever since the organization had agreed to incorporate the eight virtues and the original three principles into their doctrine, she had found favor with the group and supported their plans to open a New Fellowship hall in Yew. Perrin staunchly opposed the idea, and as an influential member of the community, had the power to halt the creation of the new branch. Motive established.
She informed us that Quaeven, a newcomer to Yew, was a bit of a forensics expert and ran a few tests on the body. He determined that the time of death occurred within a few hours after the arrival of the New Fellowship leaders. Aimi said that Klog and Ellen had left soon after the news of the murder hit the town to avoid bad press and potentially being jailed. She believed they were headed back to Britain. Suspects established.
She took us to see Perrin's body, which was currently residing in a mausoleum in the cemetery, awaiting burial. The wounds were identical to Kessler's. They were produced by a serpentine dagger, the kind made by De Snel, an ex-Fellowship thug whom I had the pleasure of personally killing. Weapon established.
But something still wasn't right.
I told Aimi the gist of my suspicions. She brightened a little when she heard that I thought that it was unlikely that Klog and Ellen committed the murder. She then advised me to speak with Tiery, who had been the one to find Perrin's body. We found him in the back corner of the cemetery, halfway finished digging a new grave.
" 'Allo!" he said by way of greeting.
"We've come to ask you about the body you found," I said.
"Oi don't have any buddy," he said. "All me buddies are dead, sure."
"Not your buddies," Shamino patiently explained. "The dead body. Perrin."
"Sure now, Perrin is dead and more's the pity, but 'e was no buddy of mine."
I decided to cut to the chase. "When did you find Perrin dead?"
"Why would Oi fine 'im, 'specially now 'e's dead? Can't get money from a corpse no-'ow. Unless 'e's got spare change in 'is pockets, eh?" He tapped a finger on the side of his nose and winked as if sharing a secret.
"Did you see anyone around his house last night?"
"Who's big enough to fit around 'is 'ouse? That's a big 'ouse, that is."
Shamino was gritting his teeth in time to the beat Dupre made with his head as he repeatedly thumped it against a mausoleum. I'd had enough, but Iolo had one last question. "You knew Perrin a long time, but you said that the two of you weren't--ahem--bodies. Why not?"
"Sure it's because he couldn't hold an intelligent conversation," Tiery replied.
"Thank you," I said, and started to walk away back to the Abbey.
"D'ye want to meet one of me buddies, then?" Tiery called.
I turned back around to see him holding a human skull inches away from my face. I promptly fainted.
I awoke to see the Guardian standing above me. He spoke. "To be sure it was only a shock. Salutations, Avatar. To be welcomed back."
I thought this was a strange thing for the Guardian to say. When he spoke to me before, it was always, "Bwa ha ha," and "Thou wilt never stop me! All of Britannia shall tremble under my giant red thumb!" I sat up and realized that it was not in fact my old nemesis standing over me, but a rather amiable-looking gargoyle.
"To be named Quaeven."
"To need aspirin," I replied, and lay back down.
Iolo handed me a glass of yellow potion. "Quaeven's coming back with us to Britain," he told me. "We told him about Kessler's murder and he wants to have a look."
" 'Kay," I murmured, not in any mood to object.
Back in Britain, Iolo took Quaeven and the others to see Kessler's body and re-inspect the apothecary shoppe. I declined the invitation to accompany them and went straight to my adopted house.
I knew I had a Book of the Fellowship around somewhere. I just couldn't find it. I gathered together all of the books cluttering my table, mostly former possessions of Erethian, and unceremoniously dropped them on the floor.
I took the liberty of claiming Erethian's small library for myself after the old fart blew himself up. Hell--it wasn't like he was going to need it any time soon. For that matter, I also had Horance's and Alagner's books as well. And a few I "borrowed" from the Lycaeum. Everything an Avatar needs to know about sex, indeed. Anyway, the motive behind my slight kleptomania was that the books contained a lot of mystical and esoteric information about magic and the world in general, which I felt compelled to keep handy for two reasons. Firstly because, talking mice and fuzzy little monkeys aside, I've had to do some pretty incredible things to save the world. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, I didn't want the books to fall into the wrong person's hands. Britannia has been plagued by too many evil mages for me to inadvertently allow it to happen again.
I found it. The book was wedged between The Tome of the Dead and my copy of Three on a Codpiece. I began to skim through it, looking for any kind of clue that the text might hold.
Blah blah blah Unity, blah blah blah Trust, blah blah blah Worthiness. Nothing. I dropped the book on the floor with the others. And then I saw something-a slim black volume poking out from beneath the others. I picked it up. It was Alagner's notebook. I began to read.
"These are my observations concerning the organization known as The Fellowship. Although The Fellowship portends to be a group of optimists with a philosophy called 'Triad of Inner Strength,' there are many fallacies which can be gleaned by careful examination of the group's 'values'... The members of The Fellowship consider themselves an elite group, and a prejudicial one at that. They tend to believe that if one is not for them, then they are indeed against them! And if one is against them, then may fortune be with that person, for he/she may very well come to a bad end!
"Each member trusts implicitly other Fellowship members... each will do favors or deeds for another without question. On the other hand, this might mean that a member should do what another says regardless of the implications of the act... If one does good deeds for The Fellowship, then one will be rewarded... if one does not do good deeds for The Fellowship, then one will get his just reward!"
Is it possible that members of the old Fellowship, now in positions of power within the New, have managed to eradicate all of the taint from their duties and goals? I wondered.
Iolo and the others walked in.
"The murders were committed by the same person," Dupre announced. "Quaeven here showed us that the wounds, force, and angle of the attack were all identical."
"To be correct," Quaeven affirmed.
"Klog and Ellen?" I asked.
"Sometimes the obvious answer is the correct answer, Avatar," said Iolo.
"We should go inform Patterson," Shamino stated.
It was early evening when we set out for the town hall. The place was closed and locked when we got there, so we turned around and headed off for Patterson's house. His wife told us that he was working late at the office. I prevented my companions from saying anything and led the way to Candice's house. Dupre thumped on the door until Patterson opened it.
"Oh, nice," said Dupre. "What if it was your wife at the door instead of us?"
"My wife doesn't break the door down when she knocks," Patterson growled. "What is it?"
"We think we know who killed Kessler and Perrin in Yew," Shamino said.
"Oh, really? Who?"
"Klog and or Ellen."
Patterson blinked in disbelief. "You're not serious. Those two couldn't kill a fly with a firedoom staff."
"They had a motive and were in both cities at the time the murders took place. Avatar here thinks there's more to it than that, but there's no proof."
Patterson listened to our story, and in the end, decided that the best thing to do would be to hold Klog and Ellen in custody until their innocence could be proved or disproved with certainty. He excused himself for a moment to get dressed, and then rounded up a band of watchmen and headed over to New Fellowship hall to make the arrests.
Bright and early the next morning, Patterson, my companions, and I headed over to the holding cell in Castle Britannia where Klog and Ellen had spent the night. We wanted to hear their side of the story, to see if it checked out.
As we walked through the cellblock of the castle, we passed a man sitting alone in a cell, wearing a dress much like the one I had worn a couple of days ago. He pulled the blonde wig off when he saw me approaching and tried to hide his face with one hand.
"Hey, Sullivan," I said. "Still up to your old tricks, eh?"
He started to squirm in his chair. "What? No, I, uh, I was just trying it on for size, you see, as a, um, as a stunt for a friend's bachelor party. Yeah, that's it. A stunt."
"Sure," I said. "Klog and Ellen down here?"
"Yeah. Just keep to the left. And, um, Avatar?" Sullivan asked.
"Yes?"
"Where do you buy your shoes?"
We began a discussion on accessorizing, which ended when Shamino and Dupre physically dragged me away and down the hall to Klog's and Ellen's cell.
They looked like a pair of frightened rabbits, huddled together in the middle of their cell. They explained to us that they would never have killed Perrin. It went against everything the New Fellowship stood for. They had no wish to appear to be like Batlin's Fellowship, the group that killed everyone who stood in their way. They told us that they had no idea that Kessler was dead until after they returned from Yew.
Furthermore, they confessed that they were Batlin's dupes from day one. He had never told them exactly what he wanted with Christopher or the pedestals he commissioned him to make. They only knew that soon after Elizabeth and Abraham left Trinsic, Christopher and the gargoyle Inamo were found murdered in the stables.
"I believe them," I whispered to the others. "I only think they progressed so far in the Fellowship in the first place because Batlin knew he could easily manipulate them."
Patterson nodded in agreement.
A high-pitched scream pierced the morning tranquility.
We looked around at each other and simultaneously turned and dashed down the stairs. We heard the scream again. It was coming from the kitchen. We ran into the room to see the Boots, the cook, holding a cat with both hands and yelling in its face.
"What the...?" I was at a loss for words.
"The cat's got Sherry," Boots explained. "Let her go, Snookums!" she shouted at the cat.
It took only a few moments to pry Snookums's jaws open. The mouse emerged a little damp, but otherwise unscathed. She thanked us, punched the cat in the eye, and ran off.
Lord British stumbled into the kitchen, regal and resplendent in a bathrobe and bunny slippers. "Wha' happened?" he asked, yawning.
"Morning, Nose," we chorused.
"I said, don't call--" Huge yawn. "Don't call me that. What was the noise?"
"You see what you miss by sleeping in?" Shamino said.
At that moment, a watchman ran in looking for Patterson.
"Sir!" the man addressed him. "Sir, I have news. There's been another murder."
The third victim was Gladstone, the head of the Artists Guild and an adamant opponent of the Fellowships, both old and new. He was stabbed in the heart, just like the others. The watchman informed us that Feridwyn and Brita, the old rivals of Klog and Ellen, had been in the area reportedly trying to convert the gypsies. The last anyone in Minoc saw of them, they were on a ship bound for the Fellowship Meditation Retreat.
Suddenly, it all started to come together. The pieces of this strange little puzzle were falling into place, creating a familiar picture.
Patterson booked us passage on a vessel to Serpent's Hold. From there we would take a ferry to the Meditation Retreat, arriving shortly after the ship carrying Feridwyn and Brita.
As soon as we reached the Meditation Retreat, the portcullis over the passage up to the main compound slid down, barring our way. Luckily, it was a cheap construction and the dozen or so guards that Patterson had brought with him turned out to be enough to lift it up again.
We found Feridwyn and Brita standing together in the lobby of the hall as if they had been awaiting the inevitable.
"Congratulations," said Patterson. "You two are hereby arrested for the murders of Kessler, Perrin, and Gladstone."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Brita said rather disdainfully.
"Where's your son?" I asked.
I'd caught her off-guard. She barely managed to stammer out a reply.
"W-well, I'm not exactly sure," she said. "We left Garrett with his tutor in Paws. He's probably still there."
"You're lying, Brita."
"Avatar?" Dupre asked. "What's going on? Do you know something we don't?"
"Garrett's a thief and a liar," I stated. "And he's here."
"We will not tolerate such slander!" Feridwyn bellowed. "Patterson! I demand that you arrest that woman for unfounded defamation."
Patterson looked at me out of the corner of his eye. He motioned for his head guard to come closer, and whispered something in his ear. The man left immediately with a goodly number of the other guards. "Can you explain yourself, Avatar?" Patterson asked.
"Garrett's the murderer," I said. "It began quite awhile ago, when a man named Morfin began selling silver snake venom out of his butcher shoppe in Paws. Garrett tried some, and was instantly hooked. A short while later, Morfin discovered that someone had been stealing venom out of his storeroom. I happened to be in the neighborhood at the time, and he asked me to investigate. I traced the missing venom to Garrett and confronted his parents with it, but they did nothing.
"Things didn't end there, however. Morfin stopped selling the venom, so Garrett had to look elsewhere for his supply. He found Kessler in Britain, who kept a large amount of venom lying around for his research. Kessler refused to sell the venom to him. A couple of nights ago when Kessler was working late at his shoppe, Garrett broke in, stabbed him with a serpentine dagger, and stole the venom.
"The serpentine dagger formerly belonged to De Snel, one of Batlin's goons and an associate of Feridwyn and Brita. Here's where my theory starts to get a little foggy. I don't know how these two found out that their son was a murderer. Maybe they saw the bloody dagger. Hell, maybe Garrett confessed to them. What I do know is that instead of turning him in to the authoritites, they decided to use him.
"Feridwyn and Brita realized that they could use their son to do their dirty work for them. There were a handful of people who fiercely opposed the New Fellowship, and would have hindered their mission to have control, or at least influence, over all Britannia. Perrin and Gladstone were but two. Feridwyn and Brita were prepared to have these people killed in order to achieve their goals, but what they really wanted to do was get at Klog and Ellen. Feridwyn and Brita hated them with a passion. They thought the other two usurped their rightful place as the leaders of the New Fellowship. So, they had Garrett follow them to Yew and murder one of their enemies--and make it look like two others did it. Like killing three birds with one stone. The boy barely had a conscience at all, and combine that with his powerful addiction to snake venom..."
Brita started to sob. "It's true," she whimpered.
"Brita!" Feridwyn exclaimed. "No it isn't. It's not true. Tell them it's not true. Garrett's a good, upstanding boy. He's home with the tutor, you said so yourself."
Just then, Patterson's guards returned escorting a youth. He was barely recognizable as Garrett. He was in the most extreme stages of snake venom addiction. Patches of his skin were hanging loose and falling off of his body. He was barely able to walk and kept stumbling as if from extreme exhaustion. Patterson gave the order to arrest the three of them.
"Good work, Avatar," he congratulated me.
"Thanks for stalling them," I answered. "I'm not sure things would have worked out if you hadn't."
"Thank you for not ratting me out to my wife," he replied. "Honestly, I didn't know if you were telling the truth or not, but I owed you one."
I personally supervised the boarding of Feridwyn, Brita, and Garrett onto the ship at the dock of the Meditation Retreat. They would be sailing back to Britain as prisoners on the same vessel they arrived in.
As this was taking place, a smaller boat pulled up to the dock. A messenger jumped out and ran straight to me.
"I have urgent news from Castle Britannia," she announced.
"What is it?"
"It's that big stone building where Lord British lives, but that's not important right now. Avatar, Chuckles the court jester is missing."
"Good," said Shamino.
"Lord British requests that you personally take the case," she said.
Oh, great. He couldn't have sent me to track down Batlin. He had to send me to look for his stupid jester, who had probably gotten lost in his own closet again. Well, that's the way things are when you're the Avatar. No downtime, no nice vacations, not even regular wages. But someone's got to do it.
It might as well be me.