The Heiljimoor By The Axe 4000 was supposed to make record keeping easier, I mused as I pulled the advance lever. It only seemed to compound the issue. Scrolls rolled and unrolled. Furled and unfurled. All as a blur as tiny automaton arms pulled each from their tubes and loaded them into the feeder to place them in the reading pane in front of me. I pumped the foot pedal harder to keep the clockwork mechanism going as I went through the ledger files one by one. Each vellum scroll flipping past with the quick drying ink that the automaton's quills used when I tapped out the notation on the keyboard. Part organ, part grandfather clock, and all damned nuisance I had grown to loathe the beastly automaton that the dwarves had constructed. What was wrong with waxed cylinders and . . . oh, wait. There was the ledger form I was looking for. Hunter Moon of last year. I ran my eyes down the row until I found the relevant column. Billed amount: 6,000 crowns. Collected 4,000? I found a code for a different scroll. Tapping the code into the keyboard caused the hidden mechanisms to roll up that scroll and bring up the relevant one. Seeing the lopsided signature at the bottom of the damage report confirmed my worst fears.

I pulled the operator bell's trigger and dragged the speaking and hearing trumpet closer to my head.

"Operator," a distant and tinny voice echoed from the trumpet.

"This is Guild Master Crane," I said, "I wish to place a person to person call to Gregnok at Oak 7. Men's Dormitory 432."

"Yes, sir. Would you please stay by the tube while we place your call?"

Before I could say anything I heard the telltale sound of the operator unplugging my hose and plugging it into the standby box. Which meant I now had to listen to Bexder Noggin's One Man One Dog rendition of Venchnelli's "The Storming Of the Fortress of Yellow Cliff While the Screaming of the Mutilated and Dying Echoed Over a Blood Red Ocean Lit By the Fires Of the Villages Below." Venchnelli's operas were an acquired taste anyway and listening to a senile beggar try to sing in a language he had absolutely zero familiarity with as a cocker spaniel howled the brass section did nothing to improve my mood.

The strained notes of Bexder trying to pronounce the word "chstol" (Old Ikonian for "intestines") without sounding like he was drunk were suddenly cut off as the hose was reconnected.

"Sir I am piping him in now," the operator said just before the sound of the hose reconnecting was met with a familiar gruff voice saying, "Ahoy-hoy?"

"Gregnok," I said at last, "This is the Guildmaster."

"It's my day off, sir," he said.

"Indeed? And how do you figure that?"

"Boss Talon told me not to come in today," he said, "He was very clear on that. Do not come back tomorrow."

"Did he specify when you should come back?"

"Beg pardon, sir, but he did appear to be more interested in coordinating the fire brigade at the time. The bucket chain had to go all the way down to Suede Street due to the wharf at Newport also being on fire, sir."

I looked at the inbox on my desk with the still unread and unfiled scrolls. One of which I now saw had an ominous black seal on it.

"Are you telling me that both the guild house and the wharf at Newport were on fire last night at the same time?"

"Well, no, sir. It was all the same fire. Not two separate ones. In fact, it was the same fire that took out the Crooked Temple."

"The . . . stave church on Black Butcher? That's . . . nine blocks from the wharf. How did a single fire manage to consume half a mile of the city?"

"I do believe it had something to do with the walls of Gutted Pelican, sir. They were made of brick."

"How does a public house's use of brick walls cause a fire to engulf the city?"

"Well, sir, it's not like I could just cut through them. Could I? Had to think creatively. Old Creekway was on the other side of the wall from me. I couldn't just shove a knife through it. So I pilled up thirteen barrels of lamp oil, sixty pounds of nails, and dusted the area with nine barrels of flour to use as a fuse."

"Wait, you are telling me you were taking out a target for a client? Who was drinking in the establishment?"

"Yes, sir! And I collected the ninety crowns afterwards as I pulled his severed head from the rubble as proof of completion of the job. I got out just before the thatch came crashing down."

"You . . . created an explosive to take out the pub? To perform an assassination on one man? Old Creekway? Isn't he a riverboat captain? Why didn't you wait for him to leave? Or wait for him on his ship? Why did you blow up the city?"

"I thought he might be less prepared for this tactic."

I nearly pushed the stopper back in the tube. But instead I counted backwards from 6,000. Wait. That reminded me.

"The reason I piped you," I said at last, "Was because of the Grape Growers job from last Hunter's Moon. Remember they tried to form a guild and the winemakers hired you to remove the guild leader?"

"I remember the job," he said, sounding annoyed, "Refused to pay the full amount. Deducted from us for what they called 'damages.' Can you believe that?"

"What sort of damages?"

"Nothing serious, sir," he protested, "There was just some difficulties with making an escape on account of all the blood. They said we owed them for the carpeting. And the tapestries. Plus the chandelier."

"Blood on the chandelier?"

"Just a bit," he said, "And it would probably look good as new once you saw the head off of it."

"Saw the head off?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said, "Got stuck on the ironwork pretty tightly."

"The target's head is stuck on a chandelier?"

"No," he said, "The target's head was still attached to his shoulders. They're both in the privy. His daughter, now, her head is-"

"Wait! His daughter? Was the contract for his daughter as well?"

"No, sir. I did say there were complications."

"How many people were involved in this complication?"

"Difficult to say, sir. Are we talking about people who were trampled outside the grounds as well?"

"Trampled? By what?"

"The bulls, sir," he said, "I had to get past the gate somehow. So, I think to myself that they probably aren't prepared for a man riding on the back of a bull in the middle of a stampede swinging a scythe like a-"

"Gregnok?"

"Sir?"

"Don't come in tomorrow either."