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"Okay, then, I'll get right on it," I said, with more assurance that I really felt. Confidence in front of the client. Maybe that's my default operating mode. Or at least the one I choose to project when I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing; tell the punter something he wants to hear. Just bravado, I expect. "We are not entirely powerless here," The Old One continued dryly, "There is some assistance we can give you." "Something useful, at all?" I asked ironically. "We will continue to follow your good works with interest," he replied, ignoring my attitude, "And we can make it very difficult for anyone else to track you with the aid of magic." I nodded. It might just keep a few people off my back. Although I was going to be looking over my shoulder even more frequently now. Then again, I’m good at spotting tails. Gumshoe leaned close to me, speaking in what a human would probably consider to be a low whisper and hissed, "So what are we going to do?" Unfortunately, he had forgotten, or just overlooked, that all of the non-humans around him had much better hearing. Goblin ears are large and mobile, like a cat's, and the Old Ones were reputed to be able to hear the drop of a pin on the surface a hundred miles above their heads. "Let's get up above as soon as we can," I replied, equally sotto voce, although with an ironic twist that I suspected the Old One would have spotted, "I think the Old One may be able to help us get there." Rosie shook herself, as if awakening from a shallow sleep. She seemed to have been almost unaware of what was going on around her, then, on looking around, she all of a sudden remembered exactly where she was. She stood up, standing straight and clasping her hands in front of her. "Mister Dragon," she began. I winced in embarrassment but the Old One smiled indulgently - although this did have the alarming side-effect of showing even more of his numerous large, sharp teeth. "How do we get to go home?" she asked with a pleading catch in her voice. "I don't think you can go home just yet, young lady," he said urbanely, "There are too many forces at work, too many people chasing you." Rosie looked shocked, then saddened. Her shoulders sagged and the expression on her face was piteous to behold. "Can we at least get to the surface, then?" she said in a small voice. The response was a snort. "I can certainly arrange that, madam," the Old One replied, "Indeed, I have already started." He nodded, glancing behind us. I turned to look. Over my shoulder, I could see that the stone chairs had disappeared, and that a large dark circle was forming on the otherwise featureless red-lit floor. "So it is time for me to say goodbye," he went on, "Just step into the circle and wait." Gumshoe took Rosie by the arm and guided her in the direction of the stone circle. A crack tracing the circumference had already begun to appear and hints of a brighter light begun to shine through. I was about to follow when the Old One's voice boomed out from behind me. "Findo Gask!" I stopped and turned around, finding myself abruptly face-to-face with what was possibly the most fearsome creature I had ever been this close to. "We will meet again." the Old One said in the Goblin tongue, with a slightly unexpected inflection, one with an unexpected hint of a threat, "More than once." I gulped, my confidence dented - only temporarily, you'll be pleased to hear - with just a few well-chosen words. The Old Ones were reputed to have perfected a limited form of prescience: the ability to identify points of time in the future which are unchangeable, entirely immutable by the will of human or Goblin alike. I had the horrible feeling that a statement like that was not a wish, or a promise, or even a prediction. It was simply a statement of fact.
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Part 77