by Glen Cook
They were persecuted, Garrett. First in the power games of empire and churches, then because the masters of Carathca grew afraid of them and wanted to drive them out.
The cult faded into the human population, which supported it because humans were not well treated in Carathca. It deployed all the instruments of terror. After two generations it mastered Carathca. The dark-elfin nobility survived only as puppets. The countryside for fifty miles around fell under cult sway. Fanatic assassins went out to silence the Devastator’s enemies. The cult became so dangerous, so vicious, that the early Karentine Kings had no choice but war or submission. They chose war, as humans always do, determined to exterminate the cult. For a time it seemed they had succeeded. King Beran declared them extinct only to be assassinated by a branch which had established itself in TunFaire under another name. His son Brian continued the fight and, it appeared, succeeded in extinguishing the cult’s last lights a century and a half ago. Do you follow?
“Well enough. I don’t understand, but I don’t have to understand to deal with them, do I?”
You need understand only that they are more dangerous than anyone you have ever battled, excepting perhaps vampires defending their nest. They do not just believe, they know. Their devil god has spoken to each of them directly and has given each of them a look into a paradise where they will spend eternity. They will do anything because they know there is no penalty to compare with their coming reward. They fear nothing. They are saved and will be born again, and concrete evidence has been given them for this. They need take the word of no one but their god himself.
I got a really creepy feeling. “Just wait up, Old Bones. What the hell? I don’t need this. I’m a nonbeliever. You trying to tell me there’s no side of the angels, that there really is a god and he’s really a devil and —”
Hold! Enough!
I calmed down a little, though I was still pretty shaky. Think about stepping up face-to-face with possible proof that something you find completely repellent is the law of the universe.
We Loghyr have never found proof of the existence of any gods. Neither have we disproved their existence, although logic militates against it. They are not necessary to explain anything. Nature does not provide that which is not needed.
He’d never spent half a year trying to survive in a swamp infested with five-hundred parasitic species. Were gods some sort of psychic or spiritual parasites?
However, proof or lack thereof are unnecessary to the mind that must believe. And that mind becomes doubly narrow and doubly dangerous when it is given what it perceives as proof. Then it can begin to create that in which it believes.
Hanging out with him wasn’t all a dead waste. “You mean somebody is running a game on the Sons of Hammon, making like he’s their god? Fooling them into doing his dirty deeds?”
Someone was back when the cult ruled Carathca and its environs. We who brought about his downfall believed we had destroyed him. Perhaps we failed. Or perhaps another has taken his place, though what other there could be is a greater puzzle than how the one we fought could have escaped to nurture his wickedness in secret.
I was on a roll. “We’re talking another dead Loghyr here, aren’t we?” It didn’t take much imagination to see how my old buddy here could kick ass if he wasn’t so damned lazy.
We are. We are speaking of the only Loghyr ever to have gone mad. We are speaking of a true son of the Beast, if you will, who did great evils while he lived, in the guises of several of your history’s bloodiest villains, and who strove to do greater evils still after the righteous slew him.
We chattered back and forth. He convinced me that not only could a live Loghyr pass for human, but that it had been done countless times — and some of the worst men of olden times and a couple of saints hadn’t been human at all. But he couldn’t make me understand why, even though we humans are notorious meddlers. Loghyr are supposed to stand outside and observe and look down their noses.
“Interesting as hell. I’m learning things about Loghyr I never suspected. We’ll have to have a long chat someday. But we don’t have time right now. We have to make moves and make them fast, or all the machineries of the state will have us under siege and we won’t be able to do a thing.”
You may be right.
“You figure there’s a Loghyr out there somewhere who’s revived the old cult? I’ll buy that. But why the hell are they tearing up TunFaire?”
I must confess, that has me baffled. It is my guess that Magister Peridont could have told us. The Craight woman might know. She was trusted more than any rational man should trust a woman. Peridont may have revealed himself. Find her, Garrett. Bring her to me.
“Right. Like snapping my fingers.”
Also find, or at least identify, the man who was in that apartment opposite hers. I have a hunch he is as important as the Craight woman. Perhaps more so.
A hunch? The Dead Man? That flabby lump of pure reason? It couldn’t be.
Dean came in. “We couldn’t find anything, Mr. Garrett.”
“Keep looking. There’s got to be something.”
Not necessarily, Garrett. All there needs be is the perception that there is something.
I’d thought that myself but I didn’t like it. “She set us up as a diversion?”
There is that possibility. It gains weight if we presume Magister Peridont told her something that would be of interest to those who are plaguing us.
“I just might break both her kneecaps next time I see her.” I could see her siccing those guys on us in hopes they’d get into it with the Dead Man. It was the kind of stunt I might have tried if I wanted somebody off my back.
A troop of the Watch is coming, Garrett. You would be wise to absent yourself now. I will deal with them. Bring me that woman.
I ducked out the back way, leaving Dean to bolt up behind me, mumbling and grumbling and secretly pleased to be close to the heart of things.
Maya stuck with me again. There was no arguing her into going back to the Doom.
“At least let them know you’re alive and healthy. I don’t want Tey Koto ambushing me because she thinks I’ve trifled with you.”
She burst out laughing. I guess I would have, too, if somebody had tossed “trifle” at me. “You’re too much, Garrett. How can somebody in your business have so many little blind spots and naiveté’s?”
It was a question you would expect from someone beyond her age. But the young aren’t stupid and sometimes they’re more perceptive than us old cynics with our arsenals of preconceptions. I told her the truth.
“I nurture them. There are poetic truths as well as scientific truths. They maybe look silly to you, but I think they deserve to be sustained.”
She laughed but there was no mockery in it, just pleasure. “Good for you, Garrett. Now you know why I love you. Inconsistencies and all.”
The little witch sure knew how to rattle a guy.
42
Back about a thousand years ago the other evening, Morley had made a crack about how I might be better off if everybody thought I was dead. I didn’t know how to make that look believable, but I figured I could do the next best thing and disappear. Wedge and my angels had taken off. Though the neighborhood was in a state of ferment, with what looked like the whole damned population of TunFaire in the streets wanting to know what had happened, I didn’t think anybody else would be watching. It seemed the right time to get lost.
“Where can we go?” Maya asked.
“Good question.” There had to be somewhere nobody would think to look, someplace we could get in and out of without anybody noticing. Someplace we could live a while without the regular business of life giving us away. I couldn’t think of anywhere perfect, though I had a few morally indebted ex-clients who might put me up.
Maya asked, “How about that apartment across from Hester’s? She’s gone and everybody’s sacked her place, so nobody ought to be interested in the building. And you know that squeaky little guy isn’t goin
g to come back.”
“Squeaky?”
“Yeah. You know. Dorky and creepy at the same time.”
She was right. The place was as decent a hideout as we were likely to find. We headed over there. We had no more trouble getting inside than we’d had before. It must be nice having the kingpin holding an umbrella over your head.
Sometimes. Hadn’t done me that much good, had it?
We barely got inside before Maya started grumbling. “I’m hungry.”
“I saw some stuff in the kitchen when I tossed the place.”
The apartment hadn’t been set up for living. The stores consisted mostly of stuff that couldn’t be put together into a decent meal. As we did our best, I asked, “Why didn’t you have Dean feed you before you left?”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Point. I had too much on my mind.” I stirred some goop and wondered why Dean hadn’t been able to find anything Jill had left. The note she had left here indicated that what the Sons of Hammon wanted was safe. There would be no safer place than with the Dead Man, so I couldn’t see her taking it out of the house.
I wondered how she’d planned to collect it later if that had been her plan. I wondered what the hell it was. The missing Terrell Relics Peridont had wanted me to find? Possibly. But it didn’t seem likely the Relics would get a heretical cult so excited they’d risk destruction to glom them.
Once again I was back to a need for research. Thanks to Dean and the Dead Man I knew what the cult was and what it wanted, but that information was pretty spare. I had to know more about what they believed and why they believed it. A lot more.
Though if I could lay hands on Jill, that might not be necessary.
“Look. I found some wine,” Maya said. She seemed pleased, so I was pleased for her, but the discovery didn’t excite me.
“Good. Put it on the table.” I went on thinking, about the kingpin. His people had been quiet for a while; probably lying low until the outrage died down. It would. It always does in TunFaire. Who could stay exercised about the deaths of a bunch of weird strangers?
The wine wasn’t bad as wines go. Whoever laid in the stock had expensive tastes. It helped the rest of an absurd meal go down with less difficulty.
I said, “Dean’s gotten me spoiled. I’m getting so I expect decent food all the time.”
“We could eat out.”
I gave her a sharp look. She was teasing. But she added, “You promised.”
I did? That’s not the way I remembered it. “Maybe after this is over. If you can stand getting fixed up.” It had been a while since Dean’s niece had worked her over. She’d begun to look a little ragged. But hadn’t I, too? “I’m shot. I’ve got to get some sleep. We’ll hit the Tenderloin again after breakfast.”
I carried a lamp around to check the possibilities. I could make do in the parlor. I made sure the windows were covered so nobody would see a light moving around, then took my shoes off and started arranging a place to lie down. Suddenly I had about as much energy as a vampire at high noon.
Maya came in. “You take the bed, Garrett. I can sleep in here.”
Old Noble said, “No. I’ll be fine here.”
“Garrett, you need the comfort more than I do.”
Oh boy, here came the old-timer routine. “I don’t play polite games, Maya. Somebody makes me an offer, I only give them one chance to back down, then I take them up on it.”
“Don’t get yourself in an uproar. I meant it. You’re a lot more tired than I am. And I’m used to sleeping on floors and sidewalks. This is luxury for me.” But there was the ghost of something like a twinkle in her eyes, like she was up to something.
“You asked for it, you got it.” I headed for the bedroom. Maybe it was just because I was so damned tired, but I couldn’t fathom what she had in mind.
I found out about six hours later.
I usually sleep in the raw. In deference to the fact that somebody might walk in, I sacked out wearing my underclothes. I lay there tossing and turning, worrying the case, for maybe seven seconds before I passed out. Next thing I knew I wasn’t alone. And the someone with me was very warm, very naked, and very female. And very determined. And I sure don’t have much will power.
There are limits to the nobility of even the best of us good guys. When she turned on the heat, Maya didn’t have any trouble getting past mine.
It turned out to be one truly amazing morning.
43
I had Maya slicked down and spiffed up in some clothes I’d swiped from Jill’s apartment. I swear, the girl grew more beautiful by the minute — the woman, I should say. There was no doubt about that now. What she lacked in experience she made up for in enthusiasm.
I helped her with her hair and with a touch of makeup. She was going to need grooming lessons. When she got a hold on that she’d be deadly.
“I hate to do it, but I’m going to have to destroy the whole effect,” I told her after I showed her herself in a mirror. “I can’t take you outside looking like that.”
“Why not?” She liked what she saw, too.
“Because you’d attract too damned much attention. Come here.” When I finished she didn’t look like Maya at all. “Pity we can’t do as much for me.”
“Do we really need to disguise ourselves?”
“Probably not. But there are people out there who want to kill us. It can’t hurt. And we can’t be hurt if nobody can find us.” I didn’t have the means to change my own appearance much. I thought about Pokey Pigotta and some of the tricks he’d used, like putting a rock in his shoe, walking stoop-shouldered, carrying a couple different hats and changing them randomly, and so forth. The hat trick I could do. There were several in the walk-in here. And everybody who knew me knew I’d wear a hat only when I had to to keep from freezing my ears off.
I picked the most absurd topper, one people who knew me knew I wouldn’t wear at sword point. “How do I look?”
“Like a buzzard nested on your head.”
It did look a bit like a three-cornered haystack. I’m glad sartorial display is a vice confined to the better classes. I’d hate to try to keep up with fashion.
There were a few odds and ends of clothing, too, but all for a man so much shorter there was no using them for anything. So I had Maya use touches of lampblack to give my cheeks and eyes a hollow look, practiced a stoop and slight limp, asked, “You ready?”
“Whenever you are.” She gave it a double meaning. The child seemed happier than ever I’d seen before.
You devil, Garrett. How do you get into these things?
You give in to yourself and you undertake a contract no matter how casual the collision. This was more than casual because this was somebody I cared about, independent of the body that had moved with mine ….
Dammit, sex always complicates things.
We hit the street looking like poor folks. Like almost everybody else out there. I did my limp and stoop to perfection, I thought, and invented a history to explain it if anybody asked. I had been wounded at Yellow Dog Mesa. Nobody asked what you did in the war. The fact that you’d gotten out alive was commentary enough.
I wondered what Glory Mooncalled was doing. There had been no talk for days. That meant nothing, of course. That’s the way war works. Long periods of inaction sandwich brief, intense periods of combat. But I had a feeling something interesting would happen soon.
I wondered how the Dead Man was dealing with the bureaucratic siege. If he was as impatient with them as he was with me, they were going to regret bothering him.
We stopped at a third-rate place and ate, then ambled down to the Tenderloin. It was noon when we got there. The noon hour is one of the district’s secondary peaks. Those who can’t get away in the evening escape work for an hour to appease their hungers. Maya and I planted ourselves on the same bench we’d used before to watch the players parade. The day people were more furtive than those at night. Quite a few made some effort to disguise themselves. Once agai
n I spent some time pondering the curiosities of human nature. What a species.
“I think we’re some kind of practical joke on the part of the gods,” I told Maya.
She laughed. She understood without me having to explain. I liked that. In fact, I was beginning to like a lot of things about her, in ways I hadn’t when she’d been a charitable project.
She sensed that, too. She touched my hand and gave me a big “I told you so” smile.
Whoa! This wasn’t going my way at all. I didn’t even understand it. Garrett doesn’t get involved. He makes friends and leaves them smiling. But he doesn’t get caught up inside any commitment.
Damn it, mis was a raggedy-ass kid I’d saved from abuse and exploitation. This was a project ….
I smiled at myself. You have to do that when you’re wriggling on a hook of your own device.
I watched the barker across the way. “I think we have a small problem.”
“What?”
“I need to talk to that guy. I can’t without letting him know it’s me. And that cancels out my disappearance.”
“You must be getting senile, Garrett. You just tell him Chodo says forget he ever talked to you. He’ll forget.”
She was right. The man would chomp down on what he knew until somebody twisted him good. Nobody ought to have a reason. “You’re right. I am getting senile.”
“Or maybe you’re just worn out. You did real good for an old guy.”
I spat into the gutter. It’s a wonder I didn’t hit my mind. “You just aren’t used to a real man.”
“Maybe.” There was a sort of soft purr in her voice. “You want me to go tell him you want to see him?”
“Sure.”
I kept one eye on the place we’d visited last night. One old guy came out. Nobody went inside. I was surprised there wasn’t more traffic. It seemed the kind of place that would appeal to the crowd that came down during the day. I still thought the guy who came up with the idea was a genius. We all need somebody to talk to. I did myself.