Sweet Silver Blues

by Glen Cook

  I was irritated but didn’t press.

  After dark I took my prize out and got her cleaned up before I installed her in her coffin. Tinnie helped with the trickier parts and Kayean wasn’t too much trouble. She didn’t do any screaming.

  I wondered what sorcery went into the creation of those white gowns. Kayean’s refused to be damaged and soil would not cling.

  Morley was less fastidious. He put some fresh dirt in the other box, unwrapped his prize, dumped it in, began nailing the lid down. He had to ask Marsha’s help when the pounding wakened Valentine and he started screaming and trying to break out.

  We’d just gotten him quieted down and the landlord off our backs again when Zeck Zack came calling.

  The centaur came alone and started out friendly enough. He pranced in, looked us over, asked, “Did you bring her out, Mr. Garrett?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I see her? I haven’t seen her since she followed her idiot husband into shadow. Her and her damned twisted sense of what is right. I should have stopped her somehow.”

  “Might have been nice.”

  Morley and Saucerhead gave him ferocious scowls. Tharpe didn’t know him at all. I feared there would be sparks. But he disarmed them by saying, “I never laid a hand on her and I never would. Despite my reputation. And not just because her father was a friend of mine.”

  As Morley had observed before, another one.

  I opened the casket. She was sleeping. The centaur looked for a while, then backed off. “That’s enough. Close it. Can she be cured, Mr. Garrett?”

  “I think we reached her in time. She fought it all the way. I think she’s got enough left.”

  “Good. Then we can get down to business. Someone among you took something from the nest that rightfully belongs to my people.”

  That drew some puzzled looks.

  “The bloodmaster’s amulet. His symbol of power. The nest’s bloodstone.”

  I don’t know who started laughing first.

  He gathered his dignity like a cloak. “Gentlemen, I went through years of hell and humiliation in order to find that gateway so my folk could cleanse that nest and gain enough booty and bounty money to migrate out of the Cantard. You can have your two bloodslaves. One of them I owe, and the other isn’t worth enough to make a difference. But everything else in that hole is mine!”

  We exchanged looks. Dojango was getting nervous. I didn’t want to start anything, but I wasn’t going to tolerate the centaur’s tone, either. “You’ve got more balls than brains if you think you can walk in here talking like that. You could get yourself hurt.”

  “I don’t have any swords hanging over my head now, Mr. Garrett. And I have friends in town who will be happy to help me recover my property.”

  “Now that’s an interesting coincidence,” I said. “Just yesterday I made a new friend, a lady down from TunFaire rounding up the Venageti priest’s friends. I wasn’t going to mention your name.”

  He stared at me a moment, decided my bluff needed calling. “Go ahead. Meantime, get that bloodstone out to my place before sundown tomorrow or find Kayean a new guardian.”

  “He’s insane,” Morley said. “You should have let me kill him when I wanted to. It’s going to be trickier doing it here.”

  Zeck Zack said, “A large group of my friends are waiting in the street. They’d rather not disturb anything in such a public place, but they will come in if I’m not out in a reasonable time.”

  “Go on,” I said. “Get out. Before I call your bluff.”

  He went, but left an admonition to get the bloodstone to him by next sundown. Or else.

  Dojango asked, “You’re not going to give it to him, are you, Garrett?”

  Morley snarled, “We’re going to give it to him, all right. Only it ain’t going to be what he wants.”

  I said, “Take it easy, Morley. Think. He’s trying to set us up.”

  “I know. And it’s going to be a shame to abort his scheme because it’s a wowser for a creature as mentally handicapped as a centaur. We’ve got plenty of time. Let’s get some sleep and worry about it tomorrow.”

  53

  I woke up very late, and what dragged me from dreamland was Saucerhead Tharpe and the grolls stomping in. I popped up. I’d been left alone with the women and Vasco. I checked myself for knife wounds.

  “Where’re Morley and Dojango? What have you guys been up to?”

  “Around somewhere,” Saucerhead said in his slow way. “I think Morley said something about getting something decent to eat. We took the coffins and most of our stuff down to the ship so we’d be ready to go tomorrow morning.”

  I grumbled a bit and went for a breakfast of my own. I didn’t worry much until afternoon rolled around and still there was no sign of Morley or Dojango. I started fisheying Saucerhead, who had something on his conscience and was doing a poor job of hiding it. Then I found the bodies.

  Actually, they weren’t bodies. They were Kayean and Valentine, bundled up and concealed under some odds and ends and junk and straw left from when the place had been a stable. Then I knew what Morley had done.

  Saucerhead looked relieved. He told me, “He said just sit tight and pretend they’re around somewhere if anybody asks.”

  Two minutes later I noticed that my last paper spell fold was missing. I couldn’t guess what Morley planned to do with it since there was no way he could know what would happen when he opened it. I tried fifty lines of reasoning but fixed on none of them. There was no predicting a darkelfin breed like Morley.

  When afternoon gave way to evening I started prowling. The grolls got restless, too, and might have gone off if they hadn’t the strictest of orders. My game of tease with Tinnie lost its savor. Rose got nervous because everyone else was, though she didn’t know what was going on. Only Saucerhead was able to relax. I have to fight the temptation to say that it was because he wasn’t smart enough.

  Nothing happened until just before midnight, when one of Zeck Zack’s “friends” came to chide us for not having delivered. I told him, “We’re right here waiting whenever he wants a piece of us. Tell him he’d better bring a box lunch because it’s going to take awhile to get the job done.”

  The messenger departed a little flustered.

  I wondered how the centaur’s nerves were doing, out in the graveyard or wherever he was planning to take us when we tried sneaking up on him. I was willing to bet he’d planned for every contingency but us sitting tight. I hoped Morley hadn’t walked into any of his plans.

  Two hours later the handful of people left in the common room began buzzing. I went to find out why. Rumors were flying about a large fire out in the Narrows Hills. One of the mansions there.

  Morley’s opening move, I presumed.

  There was nothing more for another three hours, then Dojango stumbled in, wounded, pale, barking in grollish. He flopped down as Doris and Marsha stamped out.

  “Well?” I demanded.

  “They’re going to pick up the coffins.”

  I looked him over. Tinnie helped. She had a fair touch with wounds.

  “That all you have to tell me?”

  “Morley sent me back ’cause I got hurt, actually. He’s still out there working them. If that critter gets out of this alive, it sure won’t be on the cheap.” And that was all he would say.

  Awhile later the grolls came tramping back in with the coffins. The landlord was right behind them raising hell about our bunch stomping back and forth through the common room during quiet hours. “I’m never leaving TunFaire again,” I promised myself once more, and snarled. “Quit your bitching. You’ve made a bundle because of us, playing all the sides, and we’ll be out of your hair in an hour anyway. Do us all a favor and make yourself disappear.”

  I looked so nasty he had no trouble getting the hint.

  We refilled and sealed the coffins and gathered what remained of our possessions. For Tinnie and Rose and Vasco and Saucerhead Tharpe that meant no work at all. Their adven
tures had left them with nothing but the clothing on their backs. I wondered if I ought to put a burr under Dojango’s saddle, recalling how meticulously he had gone over the ruins of their last encampment, salvaging coins and jewelry the night people had discarded. I decided the wiser course was to keep everyone dependent upon my charity.

  We marched out to the sighs of the landlord and his crew.

  We reached and boarded our ship without suffering misadventure.

  Time passed. The tide turned. The sailors prepared to cast off. And still there was no sign of Morley.

  “Where the hell is he, Dojango?”

  “He said don’t worry. He said go ahead. He said don’t hold up anything on his account.” Dojango said it, but he didn’t feel it. He wanted to do something.

  I didn’t believe it. Morley Dotes wouldn’t sacrifice himself for anyone.

  “Here he comes,” Saucerhead said. The deck crew was paying out the last lines, fore and aft.

  He was coming for sure, in that sort of wild sprint only elfin can manage. Zeck Zack was thirty yards behind and gaining fast.

  “Perfect,” Dojango whispered.

  Perfect, like hell. Morley wasn’t going to make it without help. I looked around for a weapon and couldn’t find anything.

  “Now!” Dojango said. And, “Actually!”

  The striped-sail woman and her crew materialized from amid the freight on the pier. They all carried ready crossbows. Morley whipped past. Zeck Zack skidded to a halt, stood there shuddering. Morley leaped from the pier to the ship, teeth glistening in a grin.

  “Is this the one?” the woman called.

  “The very one, darling,” Morley gasped.

  The gang closed in on the centaur.

  “You damned fool!” I yelled at Morley. “You could have been killed.”

  “But, if you’ll notice, I wasn’t.”

  54

  The passage north was slower than it had been going south. The winds were less friendly. But it was almost as eventless. There was a spot of trouble one night when Rose tried pushing Kayean over the side, but she collected only bruises for her trouble. There were no encounters with pirates, privateers, Venageti, or even Karentine naval vessels. We made Leifmold and I almost believed the gods had decided to lay off me for a while.

  Rose’s assault on Kayean was due to my lack of foresight.

  I was taking her out of her box at night, giving her the chance to breathe real air and face the real light of the stars. Foodwise I had gotten her to where she could keep down small amounts of lightly browned chicken flesh. I’d left her on deck to fetch some, and had gotten into an argument with Tinnie, who felt I should be apportioning my time somewhat differently. Rose made her move and took her lumps in my absence. I found out what was happening only when one of the ship’s night watch told me Rose needed saving.

  I got there in time, though Kayean almost crossed the line and surrendered to the hunger. Rose crawled away, into the comforting arms of a Morley getting back to his cynical ways.

  I calmed and fed Kayean and we sat in the starlight awhile, watching the wake luminesce and the flying fish leap. She finally spoke. “Where are you taking me?”

  Her words were barely intelligible. Down in the nests, it is said, they don’t allow their brides to talk. She was rusty.

  No one had told her what was going on. I’d just snatched her and dragged her along, giving her as much control of her destiny as she’d had while she was in the pit.

  So I told her the story, and I wound up saying, “I think you ought to grab it. Denny wanted you to have it, and right now it’s the only thing you’ve got going in this whole world.”

  She gave me a look that took me back in time. I had to take her down and put her away before I did something foolish. I returned to the deck to watch the sea unscramble my brain.

  Morley came out of the darkness and settled beside me. After a while, he said, “I have a statistic I want you to consider, Garrett. Of all the guys who have loved her, only one is still alive.” Then he was gone. The superstitious half-breed.

  Later I took advantage of Tinnie’s conciliatory mood to lay my haunts for a while.

  Fate had us overhaulBinkey’s Sequin running up the Leifmold channel and I cut a deal with Master Arbanos even before we made the quay. He was vastly amused to see me saddled with Rose and Tinnie again.

  We laid over three days in Leifmold, waiting for Master Arbanos to offload a cargo of army supplies and take on twenty-five tons of smoked cod. Morley split his time between getting fat eating green leafies and keeping Rose too busy to get into trouble. The triplets sold one of their unicorn horns and went on a toot. I think Vasco spent his time thinking about doing himself in. The rest of us just waited, with me lending a thought or ten to my routine once we reached TunFaire.

  I still had to get myself and my associates paid.

  55

  We tied up atSequin’s place on the TunFaire waterfront late in the afternoon, which pleased me to no end. Eager as we were to escape the smell of fish and visit old haunts, there were things Morley and I had to get done before our return became known. Keeping control until sunset was less difficult because it was only for a short time.

  After hard dark fell, we all trooped off and slithered around the city’s back ways to the back door of Morley’s place, where everyone and everything, willing and unwilling, went into temporary hiding. I sneaked off to get some advice from the Dead Man while Morley worried about how he was going to consummate his arrangement with the kingpin.

  He had asked Saucerhead and me to be his bodyguards when the meet went down, for which he would “gladly pay your standard fees—as soon as Garrett delivers me my wages for the last couple of months.” I figured he had delivered above and beyond the call, if mainly to save his own hide, and I could do him a favor in return. Saucerhead signed on because he’ll do any damned fool thing as long as he’s getting paid.

  I swear I did not know what he was going to pull.

  The Dead Man acted like I’d just stepped out half an hour ago and had just given him time to work into a comfortable snooze before I came clanging and banging. After having fulfilled his reputation for being cranky, he asked for my story. For five hours I gave it to him. He didn’t interrupt often as he didn’t need more information for anything. He thought my precautions against getting stiffed by Willard Tate would prove needless, but supposed they would hurt nothing. We talked tough at each other a little while I cleaned up around there, then I hightailed it back to Morley’s to grab thirteen winks before I walked into the Tates’ den.

  News from the Cantard was all the talk when I got back. You miss a lot when you’re traveling.

  It seemed that when all the armies and half armies and whatnots had turned up at Indigo Springs for the big soirée that would determine who kept the water hole, Glory Mooncalled was gone. Without a trace except a friendly note to the Venageti warlords on his list.

  I liked the guy’s style.

  I was grinning when I went to work on the Tate gate by dawn’s early light. “I’ll get a little of my own back here.”

  A sleepy apprentice finally opened up. He was too addled to recognize me.

  “How’s the arm? Looks good. I need to see the old man.”

  “It’s you!”

  “I think so. Last time I looked it was world-famous me, back with the goods from the wars.”

  He dashed away, which is something people don’t ordinarily do, yelling all the way. I closed the gate behind me and waited.

  I have to admit that Willard Tate was a lot sharper at that hour than I will ever be. By the time the kid led me in, there were steaming cups of tea set out. His first words were, “Sit down. Breakfast will be ready in ten minutes.” He looked at me expectantly.

  I set my accounts down beside my tea, got comfortable, took me a sip, and said, “I’ve got her. Tinnie and Rose, too. If you want them.”

  That old man was downright spooky. He glanced at what I’d place
d on the table, considered my choice of words, gave a nod that said he understood the situation, and asked, “What is she like?”

  “Like nothing you ever imagined. Like nothing I ever dreamed, either, even in a nightmare.”

  He reached for the accounts. “May I?”

  I pushed them toward him.

  “Tell me about it while I’m looking at these.”

  The version I gave him was more tightly edited than the one the Dead Man had gotten, but I didn’t leave out anything he needed to know. To say he was surprised would be putting it mildly. To say he took it all well would be understating. The short version took two hours and skirted the worst behavior of females surnamed Tate. I think he caught wind of what I left out, though.

  When I finished, he said, “I’ve checked and you have a reputation for being honest with your expenses. Bizarre and substantial as these are, I suppose they’re justified. Considering.”

  “The advance covered almost everything but salaries,” I informed him. “Between us we’re maybe a hundred out of pocket, mainly because of the cost of bringing the girls home.”

  Tate grunted, shoved the accounts back. “You’ll have the balance before you leave.”

  “And my executor’s fees?”

  “That’s in the hands of the probate. When can I expect delivery?”

  “Tonight. But very late. Probably after midnight. I have to help Morley with something first.” Morley’s business had gotten lost in the editing.

  “All right. I guess it will have to do.” Then he let me in on why he was being so understanding. “Would you be interested in taking another job? After you’ve recuperated from this one?”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “You know the major portion of our business is army boots. The most expensive component of a boot is sole leather. Army specs require thunder-lizard hide for soles. We have our own contract hunters and tanners, trustworthy men all. I thought. But of late the shipments have been short.”