Legend of the Three Moons by Patricia Bernard

riddled mutts in here. We keep a clean establishment. Get him out!'
    The speaker was a spiteful-looking boy with an oblong face, long yellow horse teeth, and broomstick arms and legs. He was so skinny that Lem thought a good puff of air would blow him over. For a second he was tempted to try. Then, remembering why he was there he opened the inn door and pushed the pup outside. `Wait,' he commanded.
    `So what will it be?' demanded the bag of bones boy, hitching his filthy apron higher up his narrow chest.
    Lem lowered his voice. `I wish to speak to the inn keeper,'
    `What business have you with Master Wartstoe?' demanded the boy in a voice loud enough for everyone sitting nearby to hear.
    Well aware that others were now listening, Lem answered as quietly as he could. `Bartering business. But not here, somewhere safer.'
    `Be you saying our inn ain't safe?' demanded the boy. This time his voice carried to every corner of the inn. Everyone looked around.
    Lem was so angry he wanted to slap the loud-mouthed boy. Instead he stared mutely at the boy's filthy shirt and trouser cuffs, which were too short for his bony wrists and ankles, and at his fat-encrusted apron, which was long enough to trip him.
    The boy flicked the crumbs off a nearby table. `Who will I say you be and where be you from?'
    `Wolf, from the palace,' said Lem, giving up on speaking softly.
    At the word `palace' everyone stared at him, and the serving boy scurried off, collecting empty tankards as he went.
    `So you've something to barter,' said a man sliding along the bench until his nose was jammed against Lem's. `What might that be? I might give you more than the innkeeper, if it be a thing I desire.' He winked and tapped his large nose with a filthy fingernail.
    Lem noticed that he had six fingers on both hands.
    `I be Jessup Birdsnest, a Belem Merchant of unusual and unlikely oddities. I buy anything incredible and strange. A smoked human finger would be perfect, or a hangman's rope - used of course. A dragon's claw fetches top coin, as does an invisible feather from an invisible bird, made visible naturally. Perhaps you have a fairy wing, though they be hard to find nowadays, there being no fairies left on the peninsula. A piece of the High Enchanter's shadow would be worth a noble's fortune. So what do you have, boy? And how much do you want for it?'
    `I'm looking for an oracle.'
    The man slid away so fast he almost fell off the end of the bench. `I don't do business with oracles. Not in public inns anyway.'
    The skinny boy returned at that moment. `What be wrong with public inns, Jessup Birdsnest?'
    The Belem Merchant put his sixth finger to his nose and winked at Lem. `Nothing, Isaac Wartstoe! Public inns are fine places. And yours be one of the best.'
    Lem followed Isaac around the tables towards the ale room's curtain at the back.
    As they passed by Abel Penny, the fat man sniffed and a look of recognition crossed his face, so he stuck his leg out to trip Lem.
    Lem jumped over it easily but nearly bumped into Isaac, just as the younger Wartstoe pulled aside the ale room curtain to reveal the innkeeper.
    Petrie Wartstoe was as skinny as his son and so tall that he had to thrust his head forward to avoid knocking it on the ale room's ceiling. With his oblong face, yellow teeth, pointed nose and long black coat he looked like a scavenging funeral stork.
    `Name of Wolf, eh? From the palace, eh? Haven't seen anyone from there for a long time. They don't like coming through Snake Tree Wood and they've nothing to barter. So what have you got? And don't try to rob me or I'll set my dog on you, and he has teeth as sharp as a cut-throat razor.'
    Petrie Wartstoe kicked the wolfhound at his feet and the dog snarled showing his sharp teeth until Lem spoke to it gently, with his thoughts. It wagged its tail at him and told him a secret.
    Lem nodded at the dog, then spoke to the innkeeper.`I want to know where to find Edith the oracle and I want to barter for