The Abduction Read Online Free PDF Page B

Open Lord gently.
    “Look here. Laird Pallidson,” Becil continued, “we’ve got a histrionical and advantageous bridge—that’s sure. You’ve got a compounded interest in it—that’s sure, too. And, if it comes to it. Your Feckless Personage is asked to cross our bridge whensoever that you as an individuality would like to do so, as would make us indeed felicitatiously happy. Really.”
    “Thank you very much.”
    Bullard interrupted, “How about I have a look at your sword?”
    “How about you let us finish our business first?” Piergeiron replied.
    “But as to Your Immensity going off and inviting the rest of the world to circumnavigate our bridge,” Becil continued obliviously, “well. now that’s a pickle. And, you know, even an Enormous Egregiousness like yourself can make a pickle from a cucumber but not a cucumber from a pickle, apples and peach pits marching to a different kettle of fish altogether, if you follow my thinking.”
    “I do not”
    Bullard scooted his chair to one side of Piergeiron’s desk, and then pretended to be intensely interested in a corner of the ceiling. His feverish eyes slipped for a moment down to Piergeiron’s long sword, and his fingers twiddled in anticipation.
    Madieron’s own fingers did a little twiddling.
    “Well, for one thing,” Becil prattled on, “it’s not so great a bridge. Your Obesity. I’d say even with you and that pony of yours—Deadheart, is it?—
    “Dreadnought.”
    “—Deadweight, right, thanking Your Monstrosity, well, that much weighty preponderance might make the whole thing go over into the river. Then we’d not have our hysterical and advantageous bridge and you’d not have your compounded interest, neither. You see, my brother Bullard was the archipelago of the current edifice, and just because he’s got piles doesn’t mean he knows about pilings…”
    “I’d hold my tongue, Becil—” Bullard advised as he shifted his chair around beside Piergeiron.
    “I’m sure our heiratic bridge would break under Your ponderous Propensity and your pony. Dreadlocks, not to I mention your bodyguard Matterhorn—”
    Madieron growled, splitting his disapproval equally between the brothers.
    Into the tense silence that followed this vocalization, Piergeiron ventured, “The agreement allows for a whole new bridge, one you two wouldn’t need to build yourselves. And the bridge would have a toll, to enrich your family into perpetuity.” Piergeiron thought but didn’t add that they could and should use that toll for educating future Boarskyrs.
    “But like we extrapolated” Becil continued, “we could care less about the future. We could care more about the present.”
    “Once you go changing the present, all you’ve got left is the future,” Bullard noted, nodding enthusiastically. “By the way, how about I get a look at your sword?”
    Madieron folded his arms over his chest and let out an unappreciative hiss.
    “No,” Piergeiron reiterated. He turned to Becil. “You said you would sign”
    “We said we’d not sign,” Becil corrected, “until you’d been nuptualized to Eidola of Neverwinter—”
    “—our kin.”
    “—and with kin of ours ruling Waterdeep—through the allspices of Yours Truly (no, I mean Yours Truly as in Yours Truly, not Mine Truly)—we know you will promulgate a present-tense orientational direction for our little village. Great High Commissary.”
    If ever the mouse held the elephant at bay, thought Piergeiron….
    He said with a bit more exasperation than he had intended, “But I am marrying her!”
    “You’re not married yet,” Becil pointed out.
    Madieron released a moan that sounded as though it came from a tree on the brink of toppling.
    Piergeiron felt a sudden insistent tugging at his swordbelt
    “Peace strings!” Bullard proclaimed angrily where he yanked on the hilt of Halcyon. He was about to brace a foot on Piergeiron’s back, but Madieron’s own foot removed the man as though he were a dog and