Pocket allowed himself to laugh then and continued to do so for most of their trek through the city. Muckle knew every street and turn and made a point of greeting everyone they passed by name, which drew a great many confused expressions and more than one angry glare. There was a tense moment that Pocket thought might come to blows after Muckle hailed a passing Middangeard raider as Lord Sweetmeat, but following a brief exchange and several bawdy jests the man parted smiling, clapping the goblin heartily on the back. Pocket learned several shameful poems and more than a few ribald songs during their walk and ate a good many treats from street vendors that Muckle managed to acquire. Pocket never actually saw him at any thievery, nor did he ever see him pay, it was simply that the normally suspicious shopkeepers were filled with a good-natured generosity when the fat goblin spoke with them and soon pies, tarts, fruits and other morsels were offered up as earnest gifts.

Muckle was downing the last swallows from a yard of ale when they entered Cauldron Town and pronounced their arrival with a grand sweep of the club that Pocket had learned the goblin referred to as his “pompous knob.” His words were lost, however, in the deafening sound of countless hammers falling upon stubborn metal. The lively din of the streets was nothing compared to the furious scream of industry. The pallor cast by thousands of turf fires within the rest of the city was a thin veil next to the ocean of forge smoke that churned within this one district. Men, goblins and dwarves trudged between the foundries, red-eyed and soot-stained, most clad in heavy leather aprons. Muckle leaned down in Pocket’s ear.

“Come. You’ve an axe to grind and I’ve a beautiful bell of brazen brass to be boldly bestowed with the bulbously brave body bequeathed by birth to this both beloved and blessedly boastful braggart.”

They dodged through the workers, shying away from showers of sparks and unpleasant spews of suffocating heat. The bell foundry was a massive structure of plastered stone with large openings at regular intervals along the walls. Within, Pocket spied great scaffolds and huge cauldrons of molten metal around which an army of workers labored. And just across the way was a little storefront, above which hung a wooden sign fashioned in the likeness of an axe, painted black. Pocket turned to thank Muckle only to find him in a heated argument with his fish.

“I know a bell is round! That is no reason why I cannot be riding a rearing horse and playing a harp!” He seemed to feel Pocket’s eyes on him and broke off his debate momentarily. “Can you find your way back?”