Realms of the Arcane - Brian M. Thomsen [31]
Adrenaline pumping, they reached the bakery in minutes, braced for action. The street was nearly deserted in the soft moonlight and the flickering glow from strategically placed overnight torches on poles. A few boarders from Sheets to the Wind watched in their nightclothes from the doorstep across the way. Sasha crept up to the bakery door and quietly tried it. Locked.
They listened. There was no crashing, no clanging, just one thing alone: the kind of spooky, ululating wail that fathers use when telling ghost stories to their children. They had never heard Piewacket make such noise. She sounded like a wretched alto mutilating her scales; she was beyond upset, spiraling down toward full-blown feline catatonia.
"They've heard us!" Wiglaf stage-whispered.
"Get behind me," hissed Sasha as she drew her sword and took the stance. "Mr. Evertongue, please open the lock." Thorin pushed the key in and twisted, and the door slowly swung open, increasing the volume of Piewacket's eerie howl. Sasha stood in the doorway, tense, alert, as Thorin reached just inside for a morning torch, which he pitched to Wiglaf to light, then drew his axe.
The front counter area was deserted. Wiglaf returned in seconds with the torch aflame, and the three slowly stepped inside, past the front room, toward the baking area.
Piewacket mewled even louder when she saw the torchlight, and the three looked up to find her high on top of the ovens, hair standing straight, spitting in anger. They followed her gaze downward.
Pots and pans, bowls and spoons that they had stacked neatly on the baking surface this afternoon were strewn all over the floor. The wooden bowl that had held Wiglaf's tiny loaf of bread was dumped over on its side, empty.
"My bread! They stole my wonder bread!" Wiglaf whispered.
"And they got out somehow," said Thorin in a full voice. "Come on, Piewacket. It's okay now, girl." But the cat did not move.
Sasha held her hand up. "I see someone's back. There." Wiglaf raised the torch higher, and now they could all make out a curved shape lurking just behind the table. "Come out now," she commanded. "It's no use. You're finished. Now." No response. Cautiously, they approached the crouching figure. As they rounded the table, Piewacket suddenly leapt over their heads, touched the table with one bound, trampolined onto the wood floor, and skittered out the door.
There was nobody there. Nothing.
Except for one thing.
An oblong mound of cream-colored dough the size of the largest dog in Calimport.
From the floor, it barely cleared the level of the baking table, half Wiglaf's height. Lengthwise, it was twice that. It was squeezed tightly in the work space between the table and the hearth at the back of the room.
"My sweet grandma!" Thorin said.
"Wonder bread," Wiglaf said in rapture.
Sasha touched the huge mound with the tip of her sword, and it sank in easily, making a wet pop as it cut through an air bubble, which spit some droplets at her. She withdrew the weapon; the blade was covered with doughy goo.
A heavy pot hanging near the oven tipped over with a reverberating clatter. Sasha and Thorin turned to look, but Wiglaf was still admiring the miracle.
"Wiglaf," said Sasha.
"This is how they fed all those people in the Year of Starving," he exulted.
"Wiglaf," said Sasha.
"Good-bye to hunger. Good-bye to famine."
"Wiglafl" shouted Thorin.
Wiglaf turned with a start.
"Son, it's still rising."
The doughy mass had pushed farther toward the ovens. Now it nearly covered the metal arm that had held Thorin's water pot over the fire. They whirled around. The monstrous loaf had increased to a full hand taller than the level of the baking table. When they held still, they could see it rising silently, inexorably, like flood waters up a riverbank.
"Well, let's get it out of here," said Wiglaf, and he sunk his arms