by Glen Cook
The keg was half weight by the time it got back to me. I took a good long guzzle before I passed it on.
“Actually, Garrett, your timing is perfect. Come here.” He drew on the keg before he moved.
They had shifted a few sacks so they formed a parapet of sorts. They could watch from concealment yet could claim the shifted sacks made pillows for the grolls if anybody asked.
“Some of your cousins, I think.”
“Actually.”
A ragged old coaster lay about thirty feet in the lee of the only pier space available. Lee was the very operative word. The ship was taking the breeze on her beam. About fifty guys were pulling on hawsers, trying to haul her in.
She was not coming.
In fact, she was winning the tug-of-war.
“Why don’t I go trade this empty in on a full keg?” Dojango asked.
“Yeah. Why don’t you?” I gave him some money.
A guy could work up a powerful thirst watching that much grunting and cursing and sweating and yelling for help.
The ship was interesting because Vasco, Quinn, and some other old friends were stomping around her deck in a storm of frustration.
I thought about canceling Fort Caprice and just watching them instead, on the chance they would lead me to Kayean. I looked at that from a couple of angles, then rejected it. They had not come to Full Harbor to see Kayean. They had come to keep me from seeing her.
I studied the striped-sail for a while. It seemed deserted except for the short and wide thing, who was napping in the shade cast by the low sterncastle. Dojango arrived with the keg. We soon had another dead soldier. Dojango ventured the suggestion that we send for reinforcements again.
“I sadly fear we have to go to work. Do your cousins know your brothers?”
“Not by sight, actually. But they must know you’re traveling with grolls.”
“They aren’t the only grolls in the world.” I stripped down while I explained what I wanted to do.
“I think it’s insane, actually. But it might be fun to watch.” His part would be to observe and guard the valuables.
“Tell the boys.”
Below, a gust caught the coaster. She heeled. Men yelled. Four or five went into the water.
“They know what to do.”
“Let’s go.” I tumbled down the front of the pile. Doris and Marsha tumbled after me, grinning their great goofy groll grins. They trotted to the ends of a couple of hawsers and started heaving. I grabbed another. I wish I could say my strength made the difference.
That coaster fought like a granddaddy trout, but in she came.
Vasco and Quinn must have gotten my stage directions. They spotted me as the dock hands started swarming around Doris and Marsha, trying to slap their backs. Somebody yelled. I faked big eyes as men came leaping onto the wharf.
I lit out.
I did not see Dojango atop the sack pile as I raced past. That meant nothing had changed at the striped-sail ship. I whipped that way with a herd of boots pounding behind me.
Hard right turn onto the yacht’s gangway.
Short, Wide, and Hideous opened his eyes and hit his feet. I made the deck before he could head me off. Then he spotted the pack behind me.
He stopped.
I did not. I pulled straight ahead and dove over the far rail. I groaned on the way down.
The water was so slimy I’d be lucky if I didn’t bounce.
We joined up again back at the inn. After I ordered a keg to celebrate, Dojango told me what he had seen.
Vasco, Quinn, and four others had chased me. That I did not need to be told. They had started up the gangway when they had spotted Short, Wide, and Hideous. They had stopped dead. Then they had scattered like roaches surprised by a sudden light.
“They didn’t even go back to their boat for their stuff,” Dojango said. He laughed and drew himself another beer.
“What about the guy on the yacht? What did he do?”
“He ran inside.”
“And?”
“And nothing, actually. Nothing happened at all.”
“Something will,” I prophesied.
We killed the keg while we waited for Morley.
28
Morley was a long time showing. When he did, I knew he had not been runningfrom anything—unless it was himself. He wasn’t scared of anything else.
“A little trot to settle your meal?” I asked.
“Started out that way. I came back here, you weren’t in yet, so I thought I’d get in five or ten miles while I had time. I’ve gotten out of training since we left TunFaire.”
He seemed a little pallid for Morley Dotes. “Something happen? You get yourself into trouble?”
“Not exactly. Let me catch my breath. Tell me what you did.”
I did. He seemed mildly amused by my gambit on the waterfront.
“Your turn,” I said.
“First a conclusion, then two sets of facts which may support it. My conclusion is, you’re in over your head, Garrett. We keep cutting the trails of people with big clout. And they’re starting to notice.”
“And the facts?”
“My run took me out near the Narrows. I decided to see if my tribute to the vermin had earned me anything but scorn. Wonder of wonders, they had something. Zeck Zack is back in town. He arrived early this morning. The comings and goings started an hour later. I gave them a bonus and told them to keep an eye on him.”
“One set of facts, Morley. How about the set that has you spooked?”
He did not argue, which was proof enough that he was nervous.
“I decided to drop in on Father Rhyne. I figured I’d go in the back way so I wouldn’t inconvenience anybody, what with a rowdy service going on in the main hall.”
He was stalling getting to the point, which meant it was something that did not please him.
“He came up dead, Garrett. Sitting at his writing table, dead as a man can get, still not cold.”
“Killed?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see any wounds, but that leaves plenty of room.”
Plenty of room for sorcery or poison.
“He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who drops dead coincidentally after people come around asking questions that only he can answer. Especially when you consider the fact that his boss and Father Mike have turned ghost.”
He meant they had vanished. “When?”
“Sometime after breakfast. The prune was at first services. Father Mike was at breakfast. When I mentioned to somebody that Father Rhyne didn’t look too healthy neither of them could be found. Nobody saw them leave.”
“Maybe they decided they couldn’t trust you not to be a tattletale.”
“Maybe. Father Rhyne did try to leave a message, however he died. I don’t know who he meant it for, but since you’re looking for a married woman, I grabbed it.”
He gave me a wad of paper. I smoothed it out on the table. There were just two words on it, printed big in a very shaky hand.
“Blood wedding? What does that mean?”
“I don’t know, Garrett. I do know this. Rhyne was number four. They’re dropping like flies around us.”
He was right. Four deaths. Three of them on the manslaughter level: the burglar in Denny’s apartment, Uncle Lester, and the thug from the alley beside the civil city hall. And now one unexplained. “It does seem that way.”
“Any change in plans?”
“No. Let’s go see the boys at city hall.”
Inspired by a silver memory-jostle, the guard outside frankly admitted that he had been paid to disappear for an hour. He gave us an excellent description of an ordinary guy who could have been right there on the street with us. I suspected he was the guy who had gotten away in the alley.
The clerk was not pleased to see us. In fact, he tried to take a sudden, unauthorized leave of absence. Morley was on him like a wolf on a rabbit. We took the committee into the records room to confer.
He claimed almo
st as much ignorance as the guard. But he said they had come to see him again awhile after we busted up the ambush to ask about us. The clerk said they talked it over and decided we were not the people they had expected, confederates of a man who had been there earlier. They had jumped the wrong people.
So who the hell were we?
The words investigators from TunFaire had done nothing to cheer them up.
We turned him loose, then, and headed for the inn.
“He wasn’t coming across with everything,” I said.
“He’s on somebody’s pad. He’s more scared of them than he ever could be of us.”
29
We roomed in what could hardly be classified as a room. It was a converted stable attached to the inn. It was not elegant, which was why we spent a lot of time in the common room. We took it because it was the only place the grolls could quarter comfortably.
That night we retreated there earlier than usual, none of us being in the mood for the jostle of the evening trade, when all the neighbors came to guzzle and swap lies. Besides, I wanted to get an early start in the morning.
I still had to turn the carriage in and pick up mounts.
The rest of our outfitting we had managed to get in whenever we were not off chasing chimeras.
It looked like a quiet evening. Not even Dojango felt much like talking. He had a hangover and Morley wouldn’t let him near any hair of the dog.
Breeds just don’t handle their alcohol well.
A subtle change in the roar from the common room caught my ear, though I couldn’t pin down exactly what it was. Morley caught it, too. He cocked an ear, frowned. “Dojango, see what’s happening.”
Dojango went out. He was back in about four blinks. “Six guys rousting the innkeeper. They want you and Garrett, actually. They look plenty bad, too, Morley.”
Morley grunted. Then he grumbled and growled and snarled and barked in grollish. Doris and Marsha sat down on either side of the door, several feet away. Dojango came over and got behind Morley. Morley told me, “Let’s get as far from the door as we can. Give them plenty of room to come in if they come.”
The grolls’ skins began changing color. They faded into the landscape.
“I didn’t know they could do that.”
“They don’t brag about it. Ready, Dojango?”
“I need a drink, actually. I need one bad, actually.”
“You’ll be all right.”
Ka-boom!The door exploded inward and a couple of Saucerhead Tharpe types came mincing after it. Their fearless leader followed. A rear guard of three more muscle wads came in after him. The storm troops spread out so the boss could eyeball us from between them.
He stopped.
He didn’t like what he saw.
We were waiting for him.
Morley said a few words. Doris and Marsha growled back. Our guests looked around. One of them said, “Oh, shit.”
Morley smiled at the head invader and asked, “Shall we go ahead with it, then?”
“Uh . . . we just dropped in to deliver a message.”
“How thoughtful,” I said. “What was it, so long you each had to memorize a whole word? And don’t you guys find all that wood and iron a little encumbering?”
“The streets aren’t safe at night.”
“I’ll bet they aren’t. It isn’t that safe inside some places, either.”
“Don’t overdo it,” Morley told me.
“What’s the message?”
“I doubt there’s much point my delivering it, considering the circumstances.”
“But I insist. Here I am visiting a strange city, where I didn’t think I knew anyone, and someone is sending me greetings. It’s exciting, and I’m curious. Dojango, go get a keg and some mugs so we can entertain properly.”
Dojango gave our visitors a wide berth leaving. They did nothing after he left. I guess the shift in odds wasn’t encouraging.
I rescued a small philter packet from my duffel.”What was that message again?”
The voice seemed small for the man when he said,”Get out of Full Harbor. If I have cause to get in touch with you again, you’re dead.”
“That’s not what I’d call neighborly. And he doesn’t bother to say who he is or why he’s concerned for my health. Or even if I’ve done something to offend.”
He began to simmer despite the situation. Morley was right. A slice too much.
Dojango came with the keg and mugs.
“Tap it. Friend, I’d like to talk to a man so interested in me he’d send you around. Just to find out why, if nothing else. Who sent you?”
He set his jaw. I’d expected that. I opened the packet I’d gotten and tapped bits of its contents into the heads of the beers Dojango drew. “This is a harmless spice guaranteed to put an elephant out for ten hours and a man for twenty-four.” I gestured.
Dojango got hold of his nerve and took a mug to a man near one of the grolls. The thug refused to take it. Morley barked something. Marsha—or Doris—snagged man and mug and put the contents of one inside the other with less trouble than a mother getting milk down a toddler. Then he stripped the thug to the altogether and tossed him out our only window.
If the man had any sense at all, he would get himself hidden fast, before the drug took hold. Folks in Full Harbor have very strong feelings about public nudity. Caught, he could end up spending the rest of his life in the Cantard mines.
The rest of the muscle decided it was time to go. The other groll held the door until his brother came to help. After things settled down, I asked, “Who sent you?”
“You’re a dead man.”
“A thought which will comfort and warm you during those long nights in the mines.” I gave Dojango another mug. This time the other groll took a turn feeding baby. “I keep going till I get that name. You’re last. If I have to do you, you get a short dose. Just enough to make you forget who and where you are, but not enough to put you down so you don’t go wandering into trouble.”
“For heaven’s sake, Switz,” one of the thugs said as I handed Dojango another mug. “We aren’t getting paid enough for this. He’s got us by the balls.”
“Shut up.”
Another said, “You ain’t going to see me in no mines.”
“Shut up. It can be fixed.”
“Bull. You know damned well he wouldn’t bother. He’d say we deserved it. He don’t have that kind of pull, anyway.”
“Shut up.”
One of the grolls snagged the loudest complainer.
“Wait a goddamned minute!” he yelled at me. “It was Zeck Zack that sent us.”
I was startled. I made use of my reaction. “Who the hell is Zeck Zack?”
Fearless leader groaned.
Morley gestured. The grolls put our man down but did not turn him loose. I said, “We won’t be sending the rest of you after all. But I’m still going to need you sleeping. Set yourselves down someplace comfortable. We’ll serve up the brew.”
The leader said,”You’re dead meat, Trask.”
“I bet I’ll last longer than you,” the other thug replied.
While they bickered I got everything settled. I got the three to drink their beer. We settled back for a listen to our songbird.
“One thing,” he said. “The first guy you threw out. He’s my brother. You get him back in here or I don’t say nothing.”
“Morley?”
Morley sent Dojango and Doris.
Trask was able to tell us almost nothing we didn’t already know. He had no idea why Zeck Zack wanted us thumped and run out of town. He had not seen the centaur. Only Switz saw or heard from Zeck Zack. He didn’t know if the centaur was in town or not. Probably not, because he almost never was.
I asked a lot of questions and got almost nothing more. Zeck Zack shielded his infantry from troublesome knowledge about himself.
“You kept your part of the bargain, with one proviso that benefited your brother.” The brother was back inside and redressed
, sloppily. “So I’ll keep mine, with a proviso that will benefit me. Dojango is going to tie you up just tightly enough so it will take you a couple of hours to get loose. When you do, take your brother and get lost.”
Dojango did the honors. He had been sneaking some off the keg and was getting braver by the minute.
“Not bad for improvisation,” Morley said.
“Yeah. Thought so myself.”
“What now?”
“We strip the other three and dump them where they’re sure to get got, then we go see a centaur named Zeck Zack.”
Morley didn’t like it, but he went along. He was making top money and staying out of the hands of his creditors, and what more could a guy want? Cabbages and cattail hearts?
30
Morley led the way down the old path from the cemetery to the house. I knew the trail but he had the night eyes. Each fifty paces he stopped and asked the darkness, “Hornbuckle?”
He didn’t get an answer until we neared the waking radius of the peafowl.
I was amazed by the grails. For all their height and mass, they moved through the woods with more stealth than a human.
“Sit,” Morley said when tittering answered him at last.
We sat.
Diminutive forms pranced around and among us. Morley gave each a piece of sugar candy, the most certain bribe there is. They wanted more. He promised it. If . . . They scattered to do our scouting for us.
I’ll bet Morley hated himself. He certainly looked disgusted as he tucked the rest of the candy inside his shirt.
I asked, “Can we trust them?”
“Not much. But they want the rest of the candy. I don’t plan to run out till we’re on our way again.”
After that we stayed quiet, waiting. I got itchy between the shoulder blades, that feeling you get when someone is watching. Or you think someone is.