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Tehol hitched up his trousers ‘Thank you one and all-’

‘You’re Tehol Beddict,’ cut in the woman seated on the far left She was mostly a collection of spherical shapes, face, head, torso, breasts, her eyes tiny, dark and glittering like hardened tar There were at least three rats in her ht, billowed black hair

‘And I’ ‘What are all these rats doing here?’

‘Insane question,’ snapped the man beside the roundish woman ‘We’re the Rat Catchers’ Guild Where else are we supposed to put the ones we capture?’

‘I thought you killed them’

‘Only if they refuse avowal,’ thehis words with a sneer for some unexplainable reason

‘Avowal? How do rats make vows?’

‘None of your business,’ the woman said ‘I aly, before you sits Champion Ormly, Glisten, Bubyrd and Ruby Tehol Beddict, we suffered losses on our investments thanks to you’

‘From which you have no doubt recovered’

‘That’s not the point!’ said the woht and small that only her shoulders and head were above the level of the tabletop Heaps of squir her to bob her head up to maintain eye contact

‘By my recollection,’ Tehol said reasonably, ‘you lost a little less than half a peak’

‘How do you know that?’ Scint deuess, I assure you In any case, the contract I offer will be for an identical amount’

‘Half a peak!’

Tehol’s smile broadened ‘Ah, I have your fullest attention now Excellent’

‘That’s an absurd amount,’ spoke Ormly for the first time ‘What would you have us do, conquer Kolanse?’

‘Could you?’

Ormly scowled ‘Why would you want us to, Tehol Beddict?’