by Glen Cook
“Sir?”
“Besides me not mentioning any letters—a subject I wouldn’t mind chatting about, just to satisfy my curiosity—there must be something else. Call it a hunch.”
“Yes. I might as well be direct. There is so little time.”
“So?”
“In my youth I was guilty of, shall we say, a mortal indiscretion. A certain gentleman acquired proofs sufficient to place me in extreme jeopardy should they come to the attention of either my employers or the Karentine military. He used the threat to compel me to perform tasks that only worsen my chances of living to old age. The whereabouts of the evidence is known only to him. He does not allow me to get anywhere near him. You, however, could walk right up to him.”
“I get the picture.” I had no intention of skragging anybody for him, but I played the game out. I wanted him to stay my buddy. “Who?”
He wanted to get cagey.
“Come on. I don’t agree to anything till I hear a name.”
He had made up his mind to tell me if I pressed. He did. “A priest named Sair Lojda. At the Orthodox church at—”
“I know him.” Morley and I exchanged glances. So the centaur didn’t know that the Sair had gone invisible. Far be it from me to respect a dead villain so much I failed to profit from him. “You’ve got a deal, buddy. He’s dead meat right now. If I see the woman, get what I want, and leave in one piece, I’ll show you the body before the sun comes up.”
“Pact?”
“Pact and sworn.”
“Good. Let’s go. They’ll be getting impatient.”
37
Zeck Zack led us down the trail to his house. The peacocks raised twelve kinds of hell. “I’m going to roast the lot someday,” the centaur said. “Every damn night they wake me up with that whooping.”
He took us in through the tradesman’s entrance Kayean used to sneak out. Then it was through servants’ corridors to the front antechamber.
“Dark as hell in here,” Morley complained. “What have you got against light, centaur?”
If it was bad for him and the triplets, it was worse for Zeck Zack and me. We had no night eyes at all.
There was a ghost of light in the antechamber. It leaked in from the ballroom. It was just enough to betray the form of a man awaiting us.
The centaur said, “At this point you must shed all your weapons. Indeed, everything you’re carrying that is made of metal. Past this point you may go armed only with the weapons given you by nature.”
I started shucking. I could smell the end of the chase. I would give Zeck Zack the benefit of the doubt.
“Damn, it’s cold in here,” Dojango muttered.
He was right. And here I’d thought my teeth were chattering because I had to go in there armed only with the weapons given me by nature. I announced, “I’m ready.”
Zeck Zack said, “Step up and let the man double-check, Mr. Garrett.” He made no apologies.
I stepped forward. A pasty face the color of grubs appeared before me for a moment. Eyes of no color stared into mine. They were filled with an old hopelessness.
He patted me down smoothly and efficiently. Professionally. He did only one thing unprofessional.
He slipped something into my pocket.
It was done slickly. He touched me just heavily enough to make sure I noticed. Then he went to frisk Morley.
One lone candle illuminated the ballroom. It sat, with a quill and inkwell, on an otherwise barren table at the chamber’s geographical center. The table was four feet wide and eight feet long, long side toward me. Two chairs faced one another across it. I went and stood behind the one on my side, dropped my credentials and all the legal stuff on the table. Shivering, I shoved my hands into my pockets and waited.
I hadn’t imagined anything. I palmed a folded piece of paper.
I checked the disposition of my troops. Morley was to my left, my weak side, two steps out and one back. Dojango was the same to my right. The grolls were behind me. Morley’s nose twitched and pointed three times. Three beings shared the room with us, all in front.
One came floating out of the darkness.
She was beautiful. And something else. Ethereal, a poet might have said. Spooky is good enough for me.
She moved so lightly she seemed to float. Her gown whispered around her. Gauzy and voluminous, it was as white as any white ever was. Her skin was so colorless it almost matched her apparel. Her hair was the blond called platinum. Her eyes were ice blue and without expression, except they narrowed as she neared the light, as though it was too bright. Her lips were a thin wound vaguely purpled by the cold. She wore no makeup.
“You’re Kayean Kronk?” I asked when she halted behind her chair.
She inclined her head in a barely perceptible nod.
“Let’s sit, then. Let’s get it over with.”
She pulled her chair back and drifted into it.
I glanced at Morley and Dojango as I settled. They were staring into the darkness, as rigid and fierce as trained wolves on point. I didn’t know Dojango had it in him.
I looked across the table. She waited, her hands folded.
I gave her the whole thing, Denny dying, leaving his bundle, her having to come to TunFaire with me if she wanted to claim the legacy, or having to execute a sworn and sealed affidavit that would renounce and abjure, in perpetuity, all claims upon the estate of Denny Tate.
While I tried to talk what Morley called dirty-lawyer talk I shuffled and referred to my papers and used that to cover unfolding the thing that had been deposited in my pocket. It was a note of course.
It said:
Come take her out. Soon. Please. While there is still a chance for her redemption.
I shivered and tried to convince myself that it was the cold.
I read on, and under the guise of jotting notes jotted a note:
Open the enclosure only in her presence. Do so elsewhere and all hope dies.
I folded in one of the charms I had obtained from the Old Witch. Hands-at-the-door had not removed those, if he had detected them at all. I got the paper into a pocket and concentrated on concentrating on that spooky woman.
I tried to sound incredulous. “Are you honestly rejecting one hundred thousand marks? Less fees, of course. Insilver! ”
A ghost of a hint of revulsion feather-touched her eyes as she nodded. It was the only emotion she betrayed during the interview.
“Very well. I won’t pretend to understand, but I’ll draw up the affidavit.” I began scratching slowly on a piece of paper. “One of my associates will witness my signature. One of your companions will have to witness yours.”
Again she nodded.
I completed the thing, signed. “Morley. I need your chop.”
He came and gave me it. He was still as taut as a drawn bowstring.
I pushed the paper, ink, and pen across. “Is that satisfactory?”
She considered the paper just long enough, then nodded, collected everything, floated up, and drifted away into the darkness.
I put my papers and such together, rose, waited behind my chair. Soon enough the apparition drifted back. She placed the signed affidavit on the table, just beside the candle. Thus there was no possibility of physical contact, as there might be if she offered it to me directly. I gathered it up and tucked it away.
“I thank you for your time and courtesy, madame. I will trouble you no more.” I headed for the anteroom.
I noted that neither Morley, Dojango, nor the grolls turned around to retreat. There are times when not having night eyes can be a blessing.
Slipping my counternote to my correspondent was easy. Zeck Zack was so anxious to get us out of his house, and so eager to get himself out, too, that he was blind. In half a minute he was fussing unmercifully, trying to get us moving down the dark halls before we had recovered half of our hardware.
38
The peafowl carried on like wild dogs had them surrounded and help would come only if they yelle
d loud enough to rattle the clouds. I sympathized. Lately I felt the same way. But if I yelled, they would know where I was and start closing in.
As we approached the witch’s house, the air quivered. A cackle fluttered down like gaunt, soggy snow-flakes. Out of everywhere and nowhere, she asked, “Did you enjoy your taste of the prophecy, Mr. Garrett?” More soggy cackle.
Morley and the boys might not have heard. Zeck Zack glanced at the house, puzzled. I just put my head down and marched, not wanting to think about it.
The centaur was determined to stick with us. I expected him to press on the matter of Sair Lojda, and he didn’t disappoint me. He started in halfway to the graveyard. I told him, “Wait,” and refused to listen.
Morley picked the spot to squat, the one we had used before keeping our date with Zeck Zack. Morley sat down. So did I. Morley said, “We need to talk.”
“Yeah.”
Zeck Zack grumbled, “This is where you tell me how sorry you are, can’t keep your half of the bargain?”
“No,” Morley said. “We can deliver on that fast enough to make your head spin. The problem is, you didn’t deliver.”
I looked at Morley. He explained, “You gave her the paper upside down. She didn’t turn it. She couldn’t read. It’s reasonable to assume that your Kayean could.”
“She could. You’re right. That wasn’t her. Didn’t begin to resemble her. They just plain didn’t know I knew her.”
Zeck Zack looked upset. I didn’t bother to ask. I did say, “One question, old horse. When you bought that house, was it your idea, theirs, or the priest’s?”
“The priest’s.”
“One cycle of coincidence unmasked. Did he find what he was afraid might be hidden there?”
“No.”
“Did you? I’m sure you looked.”
He was regaining his balance. He grinned. “I took that place apart. I needed some back leverage.”
“I can take that as a no?”
“Right.”
“Garrett,” Morley said, “is that paper going to satisfy you? It’ll get you your ten percent.”
“That’s not what I said I’d do. I haven’t found her yet.”
He grunted. I couldn’t be sure in that light, but thought he seemed relieved and pleased. “Then we have plans to make, things to do, and our butts to cover.” He rose. “Your pal there jacked us around, but maybe he didn’t have any choice. I say we deliver our half. Maybe he’ll suffer a fit of gratitude. Come on.”
There was an edge to his voice I didn’t like.
I’m not sure Zeck Zack followed Morley. Maybe he just didn’t want to go back down to that house. Or maybe he thought he would get to watch the priest die.
Morley hiked straight to the mausoleum we’d visited earlier. “Open it up, Marsha.” Marsha obliged.
Zeck Zack noted the little giveaway details that said the tomb was in use. “You already did it? Before . . . you dumped him here?”
Morley gave him the lucifer stone. “See for yourself. Pardon us if we don’t join you. We’ve been in there once already tonight. We don’t have your iron stomach.”
Their gazes locked. Right then Zeck Zack would have murdered him cheerfully. The odds didn’t favor him. He spun, raised the stone, stamped inside.
Morley said something in grollish.
Marsha slammed the door.
“Morley!”
“A little night trading, I told you the first time I reported on him. Like a little innocent smuggling, I thought. What do you want to bet he procures for them?”
I had known Morley a long time, though not well. I’d seen him angry, but never out of control. And never eaten up with hatred.
“You know what we walked into down there, don’t you, Garrett?”
“I know.” And Father Rhyne’s last message and Kayean’s excommunication made sense. Of a sort. So did the attacks and rumors of attacks.
Morley calmed down. “Something had to be done. He could have trotted straight down there and told them we weren’t taken in. He’ll be all right for a while. We already know he has a strong stomach. We can turn him loose later, if you want. Anyway, a few days in there might incline him to tell us how to find her.”
“I’ll know how to reach her soon enough.” Though Morley gave me the fisheye, I didn’t elucidate.
“You sure you know what you’re doing? There wasn’t anything in your deal about digging her out of a nest of the night people.”
“I know.” I knew only too well. And I am cursed with an imagination capable of conjuring up the worst possibilities.
“If we blow it and get taken, me and the triplets are just dead. We don’t have enough human blood to be any use to them. But you . . . ”
“I said I know, Morley. Back off. We have the major to worry about. He knows we were in touch with the centaur. I expect he knows the priest was blackmailing Zeck Zack. With the priest gone that leverage is gone. So are we. Meaning we might have learned something that made us run for cover. He’s going to tear this town apart. He’s going to have guys sitting on every way out. We can’t stay here. When the sun comes up the sextons will start planting the day’s crop of stiffs. They’ll wonder what we’re doing hanging around. We can’t go back to the inn. Everybody will be watching that.”
“Don’t get yourself in an uproar. We’ve got the woods to hide in. We’ve got ourselves a night trader who knows ways to get people and things in and out of town. I say let’s worry about our friends of the nest and let your major worry about himself.”
Morley had a point of sorts, though he didn’t realize it. The more the major scurried around looking for us, the more likely he was to draw the attention of superiors who might want to know what was going on. And few if any of the men he commanded would be Venageti operatives. Their suspicions dared not be aroused.
He had to juggle carefully.
39
I wakened to an itchy nose, tittering, and the harumph-harumph of grollish laughter. I opened my eyes. Something brown and fuzzy waved in my face. Behind it was one of the little folk, seated in the crotch of a bush. I controlled my temper and got my forequarters upright, leaning against a tree. I was stiff and sore from sleeping on the ground.
No doubt Morley would argue that it was good for me.
“Where the hell are Morley and Dojango?”
The only answer I got was some big grollish grins and titters from the undergrowth.
“All right. Be that way.”
“Sugar?” A tiny voice piped.
“If I’d had any, you would have swiped it while I was sleeping.”
“With those great beasties watching over you?” the one in the bush asked.
I didn’t feel like arguing. Morning is always too early for anything but self-pity, and even that’s usually too much trouble. “Is there anyone in or around the centaur’s house?” You have to strive for precision with those folk. “Human or otherwise?”
“Sugar?”
“No sugar.”
“Bye, now.”
So. No pay, no play. Little mercenaries. I considered going down and burglarizing the centaur’s kitchen. But I wasn’t hungry enough to bet that Zeck Zack’s masters had done the rational thing and gotten the hell out the minute my affidavit and I departed. Besides, I didn’t feel like getting up and doing anything.
I sat there trying to reconcile the Kayean who dwelt among the nightmares with the Kayean I had known. I shuffled through what I remembered from her letters to Denny. Nothing there but the occasional hint that she was not happy. Never a word about her whereabouts or circumstances. She hadn’t been proud of herself.
No sense worrying about it. That would give me nothing but a headache and the heebie-jeebies. She could explain when I got to her.
Morley showed up around noon, staggering under a load of junk. “What’s all that?” I demanded. “You planning an invasion? Where’s Dojango? What the hell have you been up to?”
“Taking bids on your butt from V
asco, Rose, and your major. It was hot going till they got up to a quarter mark. Here.” He dumped half his load beside me. I noted a sack that looked like it might contain comestibles. I hit it first.
“What is all this stuff?”
“Raw materials. For the arsenal we’ll need if we’re going into a nest after your lady. They’d smell metal hardware ten miles off. You any good at flaking stone arrow points?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never tried.”
He looked exasperated. “Didn’t they teach you anything practical in that Marine Corps of yours?”
“Three thousand ways to kill Venageti. I’m a tool user, not a toolmaker.”
“I guess the load falls on Doris and Marsha again.” He gobbled grollish, and gave the big guys a bunch of stuff. Two minutes later, snarling and rumbling, they were chipping out arrowheads with a touch as delicate as a mouse’s. They were good, and they were fast.
Morley said, “They’re put out. They say it’s dwarf’s work. They want to know why they can’t just make themselves some ten-foot clubs and go in and break skulls. Grolls are slow sometimes.”
I could whittle a bit so I set to making myself a sword from an ironwood lath. It’s a good hard wood that will almost take an edge, but won’t hold one the way steel will. So I gave myself only one. The backstroke side I channeled and set with waste from the arrowhead flaking. That gave me a vicious tool.
Time rolled by. I shed my troubles in my concentration on my craftsmanship.
“Have mercy, Garrett!” Morley snapped. “Do you really have to put in the blood gutters?”
I looked at the thing in my hand. I sure was doing it up purple. I tried it for balance. “Close. Needs a little more work. A little more polish to lessen the drag during the cut.”
“And you call me bloodthirsty.”
“I’d rather carry a saber.”
“Come off it. One time we’re going to use this stuff. Finish it up. I cut some bolts, there. Fletch them and sharpen them. I’ll harden and poison the tips when I’m done here.” He was removing metal parts from crossbows and replacing them. The reworked weapons wouldn’t hold up, but, like he said, it was just the one raid.