The Long, Dark Winter

Holidays are generally a slow-down for any business, which for many people means they're an uptick for personal ventures, like all the reading you meant to do, or those little projects around the house, or even just finding more time to spend with your cats and/or kids and/or albino hedgehog.

...What?  They're cute.

See?

Normally, as a part-time writer, it would mean a break from the daily grind and interrupt-heavy work environment of my money-making profession, and thus a chance to devote entirely to writing and recapture the momentum often lost in the wake of the marathon that is NaNoWriMo.

Instead, I decided to play with my cats.

Actually, that's a gross understatement.  November and December (the proverbial holiday season, even though not a month passes in this country without at least one holiday, lest the Hallmark mafia get angsty) involved buying my first house, moving into said house (oddly, less work than buying it) with girlfriend, proposing to girlfriend (now fianceé), all while still learning the ropes of the job I started in September.

That I got NaNoWriMo done at all is something of a minor miracle to me.

So looking at my week off for the holiday span between Christmas and New Year's, I decided to use it to unpack, prep the house, plan the proposal, and generally recoup and recover from the madness that was the last two months of 2011.  A.J. Pendlebolt, Gnomish Investigator went entirely untouched.

I remain 51,000 words in and only just now scraping the surface of the key plot underpinning it all, which means editing this book will be a little like mowing the lawn of a guy who's been dead ten years.  The first pass is just about finding the dirt underneath it all again, then we can focus on the intricate landscaping and cute little rose garden next to the bird bath and koi pond.

...What?  I garden.  Deal with it.

I had originally intended for A.J. to be sent, fully edited, to publishers in mid-March (on the ides, no less, in hopes it might somehow bring good luck, or a cross-dressing Gwyneth Paltrow.  I would have accepted either).

Instead, it's looking likely that early July will be the send-off date.  I'll have the whole of February and March to finish writing the thing (including a week-long vacation in March to crunch through the exciting bits near the end).  After that, there's a standard month-long moratorium on edits to let the idea stew for a bit.  

Editing will start late in April once work settles down near the end of the semester and wrap up in early June.  Near the end of June, I have a week at the beach to do a final pass and add any finishing touches, then on July 1, I hope to be sending it off for publication.

More snippets will be coming as soon as I break ground on it again.  I had originally intended to keep them coming all through December, but everything sort of exploded on me, as mentioned above.

Thanks for your patience!  Once it gets cleaned up, I have no doubt A.J. will be well worth the wait :)

A.J. Pendlbolt - Questioning Counselor Hargrove

“Madam Counselor,” A.J. began, leaning forward in his seat with his tea cup still hovering over its saucer, “can you tell us where you were shortly before the night bell two nights prior?”

“Naturally,” the woman answered, taking a long sip of her tea.  Her eyes remained unwaveringly pinned to the gnome with an eagerness that Dede continued to find unsettling.  “I was here in my study, poring over the last of the day’s affairs before taking my evening rest.”

“Can anyone verify that?” Dede asked at once, catching a warning glance from A.J.  Despite generally being the more courteous of the pair, she had little interest in ingratiating herself with the likes of Counselor Hargrove; a woman who made the term ‘noble’ appear anything but.

“Only my manservant, Gerald,” the counselor explained, not batting an eye at the question as she sat her tea on the small octagonal table beside her chair.

“That’s hardly a reliable witness,” Dede said flatly, adding:  “not meaning any offense,” when she saw the look her partner was giving her.  It was a phrase A.J. himself had often used when catching similar glances from her, and with about as much sincerity.

“Of course he isn’t,” the counselor added without missing a beat, “but as an unmarried councilwoman, I’m not in the habit of inviting strangers into my study after the night bell.”  She smiled as she gathered up her saucer for another drink.  “I have a reputation to maintain.”

“About that reputation…” Dede began, cutting herself short when A.J.’s hand went up in a sign of caution.

“Do you know who it is that’s been murdered?” he asked, his tone just as gentle as before.

“Counselor Harrows, of course,” the councilwoman answered, the smile not leaving her face.

“Mind telling us how you know?” Dede asked, her temper clear at the sharp edges of her voice.

“It has to be,” the counselor explained.  “Why else would they cancel session on the day of ratification for one of the most wide-reaching proposals in council history?”  She enjoyed another drink of her tea, shutting her eyes to savor the flavor.  “Even if it was hopelessly misguided.”

Dede swallowed her objection with some effort as A.J. sat forward on the settee, returning his saucer to the serving tray.  “Can you explain?” he asked, continuing with some hesitation as he watched Dede's expression out of the corner of his eye.  “What about the late counselor’s proposal did you find to be...misguided?”

Hargrove laughed, setting her tea aside and tapping the side of her cup with her fingernail.  The porcelain rang into the air like a bell, calling Gerald back to the room in an instant.  The gnome gathered up the tea pot and stepped behind the counselor’s chair to refill her cup.  If it weren’t for the sound of the tea itself, A.J. might not have believed he were still in the room.

“Despite the love lavished upon Counselor Harrows of late,” the counselor began, snaking her fingers around her tea cup, “she retained her critics on the council.”  Her eyes narrowed at the woman just as her wry smile was twisting its way upward into a sickening grin.  “And her enemies.”

“Like yourself?” Dede offered, sipping her tea loudly.

“And others,” the counselor was quick to counter, waving her servant off without taking her hand away from her cup.  The gnome and the tea pot vanished behind the chair again, reappearing only seconds before both exited the room, still bowed.  “For one, the woman had no formal training in market finance.  Her ideals about the myths of foreign trade were only further proof that any such proposal was doomed to fail from its inception.   If it hadn’t been for our dear king-to-be, it would have died on the council floor and been swept up with the morning trash.”

The counselor took another long sip from her tea, watching Dede carefully over the lip of her cup.  The other dwarf maintained her composure, if only just.  “What myths?” A.J. asked, drawing both of their attentions.  “About foreign trade,” he clarified, cleaning his spectacles on a corner of his vest.

The counselor’s smile grew all the more sinister as she sat forward in her seat, leaning over the small table between them.  “Our dear counselor believed that our desert neighbors would rake us dryer than an iron floor,” she explained, eyeing Nathaniel in the corner, “that the humans would fall victim to their bitter urges and continue buying up our precious gemstone stock until the very mines collapsed, and our royal reserves along with them.”

“I was led to understand the counselor had a fondness for the people of Nijhum,” A.J. interjected, keeping his tone soft and even.  Dede shot him a curious look, knowing her partner had never taken the slightest interest in politics.  Gnomes were so woefully underprivileged in Stenwahl that it would have merely served to upset him with little hope of anything changing; a sentiment A.J. himself had voiced to her more than once, which led her to realize that his statement to the counselor was based solely on the evidence gathered on their brief visit to the late councilwoman’s lower terrace residence.  “Was that not the case?”

“Oh, she most certainly did,” Hargrove lilted, letting the innuendo linger on the pointed tip of her words, “but that isn’t to say she was ignorant of their tendencies.”  Her eyes darting to the corner again, searching for a reaction, but the guardsman merely nodded in acknowledgement.  She was delighted in part at the stiffness of the bow and the way in which the man never took his eyes off her in the course of it.  “I think it only added to her ‘fondness’ for them.”

Snippet: A.J. Pendlebolt - The Signmaker

“We’re investigating a murder,” Dede explained, giving the stacked planks only a passing glance to ensure none of them were ready to topple over before following her partner up to the counter.  “Constable Thaddock said that you found a singed bit of dyed parchment outside your stop yesterday morning, is that right?”

“That’s right,” the signmaker replied, a bright smile shining through his mottle gray beard.  “Spotted ‘em out in the street, all circled about.  Knew something was amiss, so I gave one of her boys the parchment.  Only,” he added, the smile fading from his face, “the constable didn’t seem to think it was related…”

“The constable was wrong,” A.J. told him, stooping to inspect one of the signs jutting out from the bottom of a nearby pile.  He could barely make out the letters H-A-M-O-N before he realized that it was meant to hang over a portion of Hammond’s Walk.  The absent ‘m’ remained a mystery, as did the missing apostrophe near the end of ‘Hammond’s.’  “Where did you find the menu?”

“The parchment?” the signmaker asked, lifting up a portion of the counter to slip out into the shop, wiping his large hands on a stained rag that already bore several different shades of paint, as did his hands and much of the arms to which they were attached.  “It was in the street just there,” he said, gesturing towards the door, “right by the curb.  I spotted it when I went to sweep the stoop.”

“Was it already singed when you found it?” Dede asked, ignoring the click of disapproval from A.J.  What she didn’t realize was that the gnome’s disappointment was actual in finding another typo in a sign at the top of a shorter stack on the opposite side of the narrow corridor:  “Legal Liaisons” spelled without the second ‘i,’ a mistake he might have been willing to ignore were it not for the superfluous apostrophe at the end of ‘liaisons,’ clearing an immigrant from the miswritten Hammond’s Walk sign.

“Oh, very much so,” the signmaker answered, “though the fire had gone out of it by then.  There was just the one little trail of smoke coming off the corner, and I stomped that out but good when I found it.”

“Were there any other pages with it?” Dede pressed him, hoping for a clue to the whereabouts of the proposal at last.  The menu and even the murder itself were largely supplemental to the greater issue of a law that might never come to pass.  Even if they managed to catch the murderers, if the proposal bearing the late councilwoman’s last signature were to be destroyed, the proposal might never see its way into law.

The signmaker paused to consider the question, running over the previous morning in his mind.  He started to pace in the office a bit, trying to retrace his steps before finally shaking his head to the woman.  “No, mum,” he explained, staring at the floor with his palms open.  “Least, not as far as I can remember.”

“Unconscionable,” A.J. muttered, shaking his head in disapproval.

“I am sorry, gov,” the signmaker said dejectedly.

“As well you should be,” the gnome intoned, largely speaking to himself.

“Oh, come now, A.J.,” Dede objected.  “It isn’t his fault the proposal wasn’t there.  The thieves would have been much more invested in its destruction than some dinner menu.”

“Hm?” A.J. said, looking up from his latest discovery:  a smithy’s sign that bore little resemblance to proper language at all.  “Oh, that,” he added a moment later, realizing at last what she had meant.  He pointed to the sign at his feet.  “I was talking about the ‘Blokesmith’s Sloppe,’” he explained, “which really does bring to mind all manner of terrible imagery.  A man who fashions blokes is one thing, but to sell the slop was wares?”  He shook his head at the thought, returning his attention to the sign.  “It positively boggles the mind.”

NaNoWriMo: Success!!

You are looking at the proud winner of NaNoWriMo 2011; a funny contest, in that it can have infinite winners, since there is no finite limit on words that can be put to our collective and individual imaginations.

A fact for which I am very grateful.

In honor of the event, I will be posting one last scene from the new novel, A.J. Pendlebolt: Gnomish Detective this Friday.  Since the novel is barely half-finished, I may continue to post snippets over the course of the next few months.  With any luck, a manuscript will be going out to publishers in March 2012.

Thank you to all my friends who humbly agreed to be told to buzz off over the course of the past month, to my cats for keeping the sitting-on-keyboard antics to a minimum, and to my girlfriend for perhaps being the most understanding soul of all (given that we also closed on our first house this month).

To all my fellow WriMo's, whether you hit the mark or not, thank you for sharing with us the little crazy things rattling around in your beautiful brains so that they might spark something equally crazy in ours.

NaNoWriMo Preview: Meeting the Constable

Author's Note:  I'm often amazed but just how few words 50,000 actually is; not just in the time it takes to write it, but in how little of a story can be told.  Watch your average film and count the minutes before things really kick into high gear and onward towards climax.  I would bet an average of them hit the halfway point before you truly see the plot develop toward its eventual close.  

I say this knowing that the scene I'm about to post here is past the 30,000 word mark, past the 56th page in an 8.5x11 layout; a not-insignificant body of work.  Yet our hero and his partners are still in the process of gathering information on the initial pair of murders (which they have only recently discovered are linked).  

To think I may only be a third of the way into this work and still deeply mired in what I hope is at least cleverly worded exposition is a little daunting when one considers just how much this is the small house salad to the enticing entree yet to come.  I hope you enjoy.

- andy

* * *

Satisfied at the retelling, A.J. squinted up into the high light from the mirror mesh that was forever focused on this particular haven of commerce as if more light might actually lend purity to the vendors or their seedy patrons.  The woven network of high, angled mirrors managed to catch even the last slivers of light from the desert valley outside without even so much as a drop of magic to feed them.  He might have taken more pride in the feat, were it not for the mirrors’ irritating habit of perpetually guiding the light directly into his eyes.

Squinting through the sun spots, he tried to refocus his eyes and his mind on the scene, somewhere between the thousand scuffling feet of the marketplace.  Somewhere nearby, only two nights prior, a young human boy struggling to earn a day’s wage had been stabbed multiple times and left for dead alongside his bulging purse.  Though both the body and the silver were long gone, there had to be clues left that might lead back to the killer, or killers, who had seen fit to carve into the boy like a stalkermeat pie .

His focus was interrupted by a familiar voice calling out over top of the constant din.  “Well, if it isn’t old Quarterstock himself,” said the constable, making her way up the row to where the trio now stood.  The golden sash of her station shimmered in the bright light of the afternoon, standing out sharply against her otherwise haggard appearance.  The two dwarven officers following behind her could easily have passed for twins, right down to the cut of their beards.  Otherwise, they looked every bit as provincial as the woman who led them, their silver sashes seemingly the only thing of any luster they owned in a city full of metal and gemstones.

The constable herself was squat of figure, even for a dwarf, with long gray hair that trailed almost to her ankles, even when bound in its thick braid.  “And only two days late,” she added, stopping short to glance down at the gnome.  “That’s a new record for you, isn’t it?”

“Breaking new ground every day,” A.J. answered, making an overelaborate gesture of bowing to the constable.  Nathaniel echoed with it far more genuine intent.  Dede remained rigid, not taking her eyes off the woman or the leather cudgel at her hip.

“Constable,” she said stiffly.  “I see you got my message.  Your man said you couldn’t make it.”

“Well, I can always make time for the good people of this city,” the constable said to no one in particular, turning to gaze out into the busy street.  “Or to watch Quarterstock trip all over his little legs trying to figure out what happened here.”

“We know what happened here,” A.J. told her, adjusting his spectacles pointedly as he watched the patrons milling about on the same clustered street.  “What I mean to uncover is why and how.”

“How?” the constable laughed, holding her not-insubstantial belly.  “I think maybe you’ve been standing in the mirrorlight too long, boy.  That courier had more holes in him than the highway road.”  With a long glance up at the tall Terrace guardsman accompanying them, she added:  “Or do you think maybe he drowned?”

“Of course he was stabbed,” A.J. admitted, squatting next to the curb and running his fingers along a handful of white scuff marks where the stone had been stuck by something hard enough to leave a mark.  The constable just chuckled, but before she could state the obvious, the gnome rose to his feet again.  “The question is, how did someone get close enough to a runner, a human runner, to stab him not once but three times?”  To the constable’s befuddled expression, he added:  “Your man was kind enough to forward us your initial report.  At least, I assume it was only an initial report.  Certainly, someone with your depth of experience didn’t think the case closed after just a preliminary inspection with no formal examination—“

“A courier was mugged,” the woman interrupted, “a shifter with no house papers on him.  There was nothing left to do but wait till the noble who sent him contacted us wondering why his shipment never arrived.”

“Yes, brilliant,” A.J. replied, still distracted by the scuff marks at his feet, “unless of course that selfsame noble had just been served a toxic supper and was too busy spitting up blood to file the proper paperwork.”  His eyes followed the line of the scuff marks back out into the street, trying to gauge the angle of approach.  “Not that you should have needed to wait for an invitation to know something was amiss.”

“What are you talking about?” the constable grunted, following his eyes out into the street.  “It looked every bit like a typical robbery.  I bet pennies to platinum you would have come to the same conclusion, if you weren’t too bored to even bother listening to the details.”

Dede did her best to keep the smile on her face to a dull roar.  The constable wasn’t known for her keen insights, which made it all the more precious to hear her nail A.J. squarely on the nose.  The gnome, to his credit, didn’t miss a beat.  “It didn’t strike you as odd that his purse full of coin was still heavy on his belt when you found him, or that on the most crowded street in Stenwahl, no one heard a courier’s cry for help?”

“It was the middle of the night,” the constable explained.  “Everyone would have been in bed.”

“Exactly!” A.J. countered.  “Not a soul on the streets.  So how did his attackers get close enough to him to stab him three times?  Surely, he would have known he was being followed.”

“They?” Dede echoed, raising an eyebrow at her partner.  “Now who’s jumping to conclusions?”

“Runners,” A.J. explained, “are trained to be the fastest men and women in Stenwahl.  Human runners,” he added, glancing up at Nathaniel, “are especially coveted for their long stride.  That same height affords them a vantage point few others can boast.  Assuming they aren’t too busy bowing to everyone in so much as an inch of imitation silk…”

Nathaniel opened his mouth to explain, but thought better of it, simply bowing his head to hide the sudden color rushing to his cheeks.  Had A.J. not been so hell-bent on laying out the scene for the constable, he might have noticed the death glare from his partner behind him.  “For a human runner walking alone on an empty street at night to be stabbed means he is either blind, drunk, or set upon by more than one assailant.”

He pointed to the intersection, tracing an invisible line with his finger up toward the base of Hammond’s Gate.  “Miners call it a ‘pot trap,’” he explained, “on account of the men who go deep into the tunnels to try and drive nests of cavestalkers out into the open.  They beat on pots and pans and generally make as much noise as possible, scaring the stalkers up the tunnel and into the waiting cages.  The poor beasts are so busy running from their harmless pursuers that they never see the real danger right in front of them.”

The constable just laughed, shaking her head at the gnome.  “Boy, you do love to hear yourself talk,” she said.  “Hammond’s Walk is the only road up to the Terrace.  It wouldn’t take much for someone to lie in wait just to jump messengers on their way up to the council seat.  The right bit of paper goes a lot farther than coin in this city.  Just means you’re dealing with a smarter thief than most.  Oh, and for your information,” she added, taking particular pride in the words, “there was a highway breeze two nights ago, thicker than soup and twice as messy.  No one standing could’ve so much as seen the shoes on his feet, no matter how tall he was.”

To her surprise, the gnome started to grin.  “Then why was he running?”

“Running?” the constable scoffed.  “They’re called ‘runners,’ ya daft halfer .  What did you think it meant?”

Dede’s eyes flashed to A.J. at once, watching the gnome carefully.  Not many people could get away with calling a gnome ‘halfer’ in polite company, let alone to one’s face.  It was all she could do not to lay into the constable herself, but the look on A.J.’s face held her rooted to the spot.

“Runners,” the gnome said with a smile, “typically walk, on account of the long distances they have to travel, and the many steps twixt here and the Terrace, where this one was heading.  A sprained ankle may as well be a broken neck to someone whose income relays on his feet, doubly so a shifter who is likely down on coin as it is.  In the throes of a thick highway fog, I would argue that anyone so worried about his next meal and dependent on a working pair of legs to earn it is the least likely person to be found running at, pardon, ‘break neck’ speed up the Walk.”

The gnome paused to enjoy the color coming to the constable’s face.  She rather reminded him of Nathaniel’s captain for a moment, minus the beard and plus several dozen pounds.  “And for your information,” he continued, “the term ‘runner’ is really more of a metaphor, since ‘walker’ doesn’t inspire anyone with terribly much confidence in expedient delivery.

“Runners generally only run when a message is of a particularly urgent nature,” he explained, “or else when they’re in immediate threat of being intercepted.  ‘Mugged,’ as you called it.  Since Counselor Harrows’ proposal was not going to be seen till the morning, it was anything but urgent, so we have to assume the latter, unless you think it likely our messenger fancied a heart-pounding jog at half-past the night bell in the middle of a blinding fog.”

A.J. paused to adjust his spectacles, pointing to the white marks at his feet.  “These marks were made by something small but strong, like the bronze cap of a runner’s case.  You can still see some of the color in the marks there,” he added, squatting low to draw the woman’s attention to the particular mark in question, “meaning they were struck at some considerable speed, especially for something as light as a scroll case to have left so noticeable a mark.  My guess is that the runner landed on top of it.”

“What makes you say that?” the constable asked, trying to sound like she had already guessed ahead at the answer.  A.J. simply gestured to the small, dark stain a few feet further into the street, where a handful of flies had gathered to inspect the dried patch of blood.

“Strange for someone paid to walk the streets night and day to trip on his own feet,” he said, watching the constable’s reaction closely, “least of all with enough force to draw blood.  Unless, of course, he was too busy looking behind him to see where he was going.”  He glanced back down the street again, imagining the poor courier dashing out of the fog, harried by unseen figures hiding in the soupy mist.  “Pot trap.”

NaNoWriMo Preview: Blacksmith's Hands

The captain cleared his throat in a warning gesture, taking another step toward the gnome as A.J. finished approaching the portrait on the wall.  He brushed his finger along the frame again, showing the advancing dwarf his bare fingertip.  “Nothing!” he exclaimed.  “Positively extraordinary.  The woman deserves a medal, if maids were given such things.”  He paused a moment later, glancing up at Nathaniel.  “Pardon, no offense intended.”

“Oh, no,” Nathaniel stammered, waving a hand dismissively at the mention.  “None taken.”

“Splendid,” A.J. lilted, turning back to the portrait and again working to mock its pose.  “So, why was the councilwoman murdered?”

“Perhaps we should finish collecting the facts before we start pinning down motive,” Dede offered, again stepping vaguely into the captain’s path to slow his advance.  “Just to be sure we haven’t missed anything.”

A.J. ignored her, still shifting his pose to match the painted dwarf.  The captain stopped short, too puzzled by the gnome’s behavior and too daunted by his partner’s efforts to continue on his intended course.  “What are you doing?” he demanded, his face again burning a ripe crimson.

“His hands,” A.J. said, turning his own over in front of him.  “Don’t you see?”

Unable to fight their curiosity, the two dwarves took another step closer to the painting and stared at the man depicted there.  His hands were the heavy make of most dwarves his age, with fat, round fingers that bore clear signs of the strength they contained.  Nothing seemed unusual in their shape save for the one missing digit on his left hand, long since healed over in his younger days.

What stood out more sharply was the strange, mottled color that that tainted his palms, largely obscured by the position of his hands.  The one resting on his forward knee showed few signs of it, though the one further back, set atop an inornate walking cane, made it clear that it was not just some error in the mixing of colors on the part of the artist.

“Ah,” Nathaniel said over their heads, craning about to peer at the same, “blacksmith’s hands.”

“Silversmith, I would guess,” A.J. corrected, pointing to the various pieces of silver in the background of the piece, as well as dotted about his person.  “But, yes.  Her father was a silversmith.  Not a well-known fact, of course, else she wouldn’t have been nearly so influential in the council, least of all when pushing a measure which would have given greater power to the purveyors of precious ore as the gem trade dwindled under its new restrictions.”

“That’s not what the proposal was about!” Dede snapped, causing even the captain to start at the sudden shift in tone.  “Capping the gem trade was meant to keep Stenwahl’s working class from starving!  It’s not some sort of plot just to create a new monopoly.”

“Really?” A.J. asked, seemingly more puzzled by Dede’s insistence than with the content of her objections.  “Perhaps you’re right,” he admitted, crossing the room to the bookshelf on the opposite wall and plucking the treatise from its resting place.  “She was well read, not just in foreign affairs but in ‘the onus of government,’” he explained, quoting the work in hand.  “Perhaps being the daughter of a smithy who would now be on the brink of poverty despite once being one of Stenwahl’s wealthiest trades was more than enough to make a noblewoman deeply sympathetic to the notions of the poor.”

“How do you know he was her father?” the captain asked, now earnestly curious at the gnome’s quick conjectures.

“It’s obvious,” A.J. replied, pointing at Nathaniel.  The latter looked thoroughly confused at the seeming accusation.  “Ms. Harrows, as Mr. Foster keenly pointed out earlier, never married and has no siblings--”

“Lieutenant Foster,” Dede corrected, glancing up at the man in question.

“--which rules out husbands or brothers,” A.J. continued uninterrupted, “and if she had had any children, that man is much too old to be one of them.”

“So an ancestor, perhaps,” the captain intoned, stroking the front of his beard.  “Someone far enough back in her line not to be remembered.”

“No,” A.J. said with a quick shake of his head, “not possible.”

The captain stiffened somewhat, wondering if the gnome were merely being contrary for the sack of getting his gander up again.  His amusement at the captain’s earlier irritation had been obvious.  “Why not?” the dwarf asked, forcing himself to remain calm and deny the insolent inspector his entertainment.

“The ring,” A.J. answered, walking back to the painting.  To the captain’s surprise, he didn’t seem to be reveling in their confusion anymore.  On the contrary, it only seemed to irritate him, like a schoolmarm coaching her most dimwitted students.  His eyes going to the ring in question, the captain soon saw what had made the gnome so certain.  “The Moltair Sapphire,” he said distantly, staring at the gemstone resting on the dwarf’s left hand.

“The Moltair Signature Cut,” A.J. corrected, pointing at it for the remaining two pairs of eyes in the room, “developed only in the last twenty years, which, given the relative age of the man depicted, rules out anyone more than two generations old, and makes even the possibility that this could be her grandfather remote at best.  More than likely, it is her father.  How she kept his line of work a secret from the council’s many prying eyes is beyond me, but I must say, well done.”

“And what does that tell us about our the councilwoman’s murder?” the captain asked eagerly.

“Oh, absolutely nothing,” A.J. answered brightly, snapping the treatise shut not far from the captain’s face.  “But it is fascinating, isn’t it?”

NaNoWriMo Preview: Paperwork

Splashing some of the clear water on his face in an effort to jar himself into wakefulness, A.J. saw about the business of getting dressed.  Standing on tip-toes to pour the water from the tub back into the overhanging vessel, he wound the spigot tight to avoid any leaks and set the cork and string back in the empty tub on the floor.  Placing the silver ball bearing back at the top of the spiraling copper chute, he dusted his hands and at last headed downstairs to start the day.

“About time,” Dede chided as he neared the bottom step.  No sooner had he set foot on the office floor than his arms were suddenly overflowing with papers stacked so high he couldn’t see over the top of them.  The only evidence that Dede was still standing in front of him were the tips of the dark stalkerskin boots staring up at him from the floor.  “You’re six weeks behind on field reports and lab invoices,” she told him.  “Again.  The city isn’t going to let you keep your license if you can’t keep up with the paperwork.”

Shuffling blindly toward his desk, A.J. deposited the stack of parchment, only just catching the top few pieces from tilting off balance and making a break for the floor.  “I’ve said it before, Cordelia,” the gnome muttered, reaching up to adjust his spectacles, “you can’t die properly in Stenwahl without written notice--”

“--at least three days in advance,” Dede chimed in for the chorus, knowing the refrain all too well.  One finger still raised in the gesture of making his final point, A.J. looked rather taken aback at hearing his own words repeated.  Letting his hand drop defeated to his side, he made a gesture of clearing his throat and took a seat behind the desk, hesitating a moment before shoving the stack of papers to one side so that he might be able to see the dwarven woman seated at the opposite desk, diligently rifling through a far smaller collection of files with military precision.  The triangular placard with “Legal Chaperone” emblazoned in well-polished brass sat proudly on the front edge of her desk, angled toward the door to present itself to any potential clients .

As she set her first stack of papers aside, pausing to ensure that the edges lined up pristinely, A.J. couldn’t help but admire her persistence.  Two years of working in a forgotten corner of Lower Stenwahl as the legal liaison for the city’s only quarterstock detective hadn’t broken her of the illusion that this was some illustrious post, worthy of dutiful service.  Having grown up a gnome under the shadow of Hammond’s Gate, A.J. knew all too well that she was the only reason he was allowed to act as an investigator at all.  Gnomes were prohibited from performing any duties of, for or concerning the law, the church or foreign relations; the last of which always made A.J. chuckle.  Under the mountain, where blood was thicker than brains, gnomes were about as foreign as one could be.

“Word came back from the town chairman on the public works committee,” she explained, not bothering to look up.  “Your request was denied.  Again.”

“Did he say why?” A.J. asked, staring woefully at the tall stack of his to-do pile.  

Dede plucked one of the papers she had just finished signing out of her outbox and peered at the formal script.  “Says they don’t have the necessary funding for a public renovation project , even if they were to get it approved by the Royal Beautification Commission.”

“Public renovation project?” A.J. echoed, his expression souring at once.  “All I asked was that someone replace that stupid sign!”

Dede set the paper down in a huff.  “Does it honestly bother you that much?”

“‘Welcome to the Magnificant Stenwahl Public Gardens ?’” A.J. answered, adding particular emphasis on the misspelled word.  “It’s an absolute eyesore!”

“That’s the truth,” Dede admitted, dismissing his concern.  “The whole garden is a-shambles now anyway.  Hardly anyone goes there anymore unless they’re up to no good.  Shame,” she added, gazing out through the slats in the blinds.  “It used to be really lovely.”  Catching the same foul expression on her partner’s face, Dede scoffed and rolled her eyes.  “Oh, for goodness sake, it’s just a sign!  Can’t you just ignore it?”

“No,” A.J. said sternly, “I magnifi-can’t.”

“Well, you’ll have to learn, then,” Dede told him, returning her focus to her stack of papers and pointing A.J. at his.  “Unless you can come up with one hundred signatures  to convince the Royal Beautification Commission.” 

“Only a hundred?” A.J. remarked, resting his chin in one hand.

Dede’s writing brush stopped mid-stroke as she glared across the desk at him.  Knowing the look all too well, A.J. decided to drop the subject for now.  With a heavy sigh, he got to his feet and stretched a hand up to pluck the first handful of files off the top of the stack and begin seeing about the business of filing his reports.  He yawned as he shuffled through them, looking over the familiar case numbers.  Number 271, the case of the curious cummerbund.  Number 219, in which he rescued an ailing cat.  Number 224, the elf with the troublesome wink…

Setting the papers down in a heap, he rubbed his eyes again and reached for a second set, hoping to find something that might better excite his groggy mind into action.  “Did you say someone would be stopping by?” he asked, squinting at the heading on the parchment in his hands to try and make out the clumsy writing of the deputy police chief.

“Yes,” Dede answered simply, not bothering to look up.

“Any minute now?” he prompted.

“Yes,” Dede intoned again, a hint of irritation creeping into her voice.

A.J. set the second stack of case files aside on top of the first, leaning back in his chair and stretching his arms high overhead.  “Well,” he said, pausing to wring out a knot in his shoulder, “then there’s hardly any point in getting started on these reports until they get here, isn’t there?”

Rolling up the last piece of parchment in her pile and stamping her seal on the edge, Dede placed it in the messenger box with a deliberate motion, setting it neatly atop the pile of similar scrolls all awaiting delivery.  Folding her hands into a steeple on the desk in front of her, the dwarf stared pointedly at A.J.  She didn’t say a word.

After several half-hearted attempts to ply her sympathies, A.J. rolled his eyes and reached for the next piece of parchment atop his pile, peering over his glasses and squinting at the page.  Number 282, in which an elderly dwarf misplaced her home.  Number 247…

A knock at the door filled his spirits with relief.  Dropping the parchment haphazardly to his desk, the gnome hopped down from his chair and hurried over to the door, only to find Dede with her hand already on the knob, shooing him away.  With a deep breath, she straightened up and pulled the door to, trying not to squint in the sudden rush of light coming off the white cobblestones.  Standing on the stoop out front was the vague outline of a tall, thin woman dressed in trader’s leathers.  

“Welcome to Quarterstock Associates,” Dede said proudly, welcoming the woman into the office.  “Legal investigators and authorized notary public.  Cordelia Cadwell, investigative liaison, at your--”

Before she could finish, the woman stormed past her and into the office, looking about with a frenzied expression.  “Where is he?” she demanded.  “Where is that bastard Pendlebolt?”