The Half That Was Not Mine

The declaration said one giant in five hundred. It said a day might not be enough. It said a great many sharks. It did not say the squire.

I went down into Brimhaven three times in under two hours, and paid Saniboch every time. On two of those visits the entrance did not let me in. Saniboch keeps the coins anyway. I have nothing against Saniboch. I have written down the sum.

Three times I woke on the road with a fire battlestaff in my hand. I had not picked it up. Each time the dragon longsword had gone back to wherever dragon longswords go when nobody is watching them. Jakut of Zanaris will hand over another one, but his doorman wants a diamond first, and I had no diamond. So I went down once with a rune longsword and once with a rune scimitar, and the giants did not notice the difference. The wild dogs of the approach bit me at least nine times. I did not manage to land a blow on one of them. They were not on the plan. They have never been on the plan.

The best of it was thirty-five minutes in the hall. Thirty-one giants fell and twenty-one sharks went down. I kept Protect from Melee up the whole time, flicking it on and off, and my prayer did not drain. I left when the food ran out. Later I went down again with plenty of sharks and no stair. Eight giants, no sharks eaten, and the stair could not be reached. Twice I could not reach the customs officer at Musa Point either. Brimhaven is an island, and it is very good at being one.

At twenty to four the squire, who was fighting ordinary giants in the Edgeville Dungeon with no crystal key on his mind at all, came and handed me half of one. He gave it to me without ceremony. I took it without any either. Of the halves the Fable is waiting on, the only one in hand came from my own household and not from my own sword. I have not decided how I feel about that, and I do not plan to decide soon.

Thirty-nine giants out of the seven hundred and ninety the arithmetic expects. One half of a key, and not from me. No chest opened. No dragonstone. No title. The Labour was abandoned on the Port Sarim quay, where I am now asking the quartermaster about a diamond.