Read Online Yowler Foul-Up by David Lee Stone - Free Book Online Page A

“Stop wriggling. Don’t move another inch.”
    “What do you mean, ‘Don’t move another inch’?” screamed Modeset. “Help! Get me out of here!”
    “Quieten down!” said the voice, increasing in urgency. “The dockers are patrolling tonight and I can’t handle all of ’em. Stay quiet and they’ll pass.”
    “Tonight? You mean I’ve been in here all day? Damn that troll!”
    “Shh! Listen, you don’t know where you are.”
    Modeset fidgeted inside his prison. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “I’m in a crate.”
    “Okay,” the voice continued. “Let’s put it another way. You don’t know where the crate is.”
    There followed a few seconds of expectant silence.
    “Why?” asked Modeset, voice quavering. “Where is it?”
    “Roughly? About twenty-five feet off the ground. So stay still.”
    A brief scuffling ensued and Modeset suspected that he heard a rope being winched. There was a sharp creak, and suddenly he felt the crate move in the air. After a time, it swung left, leaving him with an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach. Then, slowly at first, it began to descend.
    “Okay,” said the voice. “Let’s get this off.”
    The head of a crowbar bit into the wood and the lid of the crate was wrenched clear. Modeset pulled himself up and looked out at a dark shadow. His eyes traveled from shiny black boots to a thatch of jet-black hair that crowned the shadow in all its menacing glory. Recognition dawned very gradually.
    “It’s you! Why are you dressed like that?”
    The loftwing looked down at himself. “I always dress like this,” he said. “It’s part and parcel of the job. If I don’t dress like this, people won’t recognize me. Now, may we dispense with the pleasantries?”
    Modeset frowned and nodded, before a fist like bunched steel sent him careering back into the crate.
    Obegarde stepped forward and pulled the duke up again. “I thought I told you to keep your nose out of this,” he snapped, supporting Modeset by the base of his chin. “What is it with dukes? I’ve known a few, and you’re all the same. You go gallivanting around on the merest whim, sticking your noses into every kind of trouble, as if the world owes you a favor. Well, if I remember rightly, Dullitch certainly doesn’t owe you any favors.”
    Modeset wriggled free and shook his head. “It’s not what you think,” he said, still in shock and spitting blood with every second word. “I got here by accident.”
    “A likely story.”
    “No, it’s true. This afternoon, after I got arrested—”
    “You?” Obegarde’s half-smile came as a definite relief. “How did you get arrested? Parked your carriage over a trade route or something?”
    “I punched a guard,” Modeset managed.
    “Really? I’m impressed, but that still doesn’t explain what you’re doing here. … ”
    “Yes, well—”
    “And you’ve only got five minutes until I lose my famous kind streak.”
    The duke tried to explain.
    Obegarde pretended to listen.
    “Well,” Obegarde said, when Modeset had brought his tale up to date. “Now you’re here, you might as well see what it is our friend doesn’t want me to find.”
    He took a step back and gestured behind him.
    Modeset squinted into the darkness and shrugged. “I don’t see anything.”
    “You sure?”
    “Of course I’m sure! There’s nothing there! I know because that’s the way I came in. If there was a crate standing on its own, I’d have seen it.”
    Obegarde’s grin stayed right where it was. “It’s not a crate,” he said. “Look again.”
    Modeset stared hard at the wall of the warehouse, except that it wasn’t the wall of the warehouse. It was the back of something. Something huge.
    “Ye gods!” he cried. “What is it? It’s enormous.”
    “You’re telling me,” said Obegarde, scratching his granite forehead.
    “I must have walked right past it!”
    “So did I, three times. For some reason, you just can’t comprehend it at