by Glen Cook
One songbird was wide awake up front, rendering chorus after chorus of such old standards as, "There was a young lady from... " I wondered if Dean still had some of that rat poison that looked like seed cakes. The rats were too smart to eat it, but that bird...
"You're working on a job, aren't you?" Slither was still vague about what I do.
"The mission," Ivy mumbled. "Old first rule, Garrett. Even a jarhead ought to know. Got to follow through on the mission."
"Watch that jarhead stuff, Army. All right. All right." Good old attitudes from the bad old days. But was the mission more likely to be advanced at sunrise than at high noon? Excuse me for entertaining doubts.
I wondered if they had noticed the changes in TunFaire. Probably not. Neither was in close touch with the world outside his skull.
I surrendered. "I guess we can hit Wixon and White."
At the moment, the occult shop was my only angle. Mugwump had not yet materialized with the promised list of contacts.
Slither's cooking would have appalled Dean and sent Morley into convulsions. He fried half a slab of bacon while baking drop biscuits. He split the biscuits and soaked them in bacon grease, then sprinkled them with sugar. Poor people food. Soldier food. Food that was darned tasty when it was hot.
33
It had rained during the night. The morning air was cool. The breeze was fresh. The streets were clean. The sky was clear. The sun was bright. It was one of those days when it was too easy to relax, too easy to forget that a brighter sun means darker shadows.
Fortunately, even the shadows were relaxing. Not a one belched a villain bent on mischief. The whole town was in a rare humor. Hell, I heard singing from the Bustee.
It wouldn't last. Before sundown, the wicked would be slashing throats again.
We did develop a following, including the inept creature who had followed me to Maggie Jenn's place and a guy with an earring who was maybe a ferocious pirate, but I doubted that.
Even Ivy noticed the clumsy guy.
"Let them tag along," I said. "They'll go cross-eyed. What I do is excruciating to watch. Not to mention tough on the feet."
"Be like being back in the Corps," Slither observed.
Ivy had the Goddamned Parrot with him. That obscene buzzard had a great time. "Holy hookers, check them melons. Oh. Look it there. Come here, honey. I'll show you... " We were lucky his diction was sloppy.
The streets were crowded. Everybody wanted a lungful of rain-scrubbed air before TunFaire returned to normal. The old and weak would be falling over left and right. All that fresh air would be poisonous.
Before we reached the West End, I spotted another tail. This guy was a first-string pro. I made him by accident, my good luck and his bad. I didn't know him. That troubled me. I thought I knew the top players.
It was quite a parade.
34
Wixon and White were open. I told Ivy, "You stay out here. You're the lookout." I went inside. Slither followed me. I wished I was as bad as I tried to look.
Both Wixon and White were on board, but no other crew or passengers were. "Bless me," I murmured, pleased to have something go my way. And, "Bless me again. More fierce pirates."
The guys eyeballed us and took just an instant to decide we weren't the sort of customers they hoped to attract. Neither mislaid his manners, though. Neither failed to notice that between us Slither and I outnumbered them by two hundred pounds.
"How might we help you?" one asked. He made me think of a begging chipmunk. He had a slight over-bite and the obligatory lisp. He held his soft little hands folded before his chest.
"Robin!... "
"Penny, you just hush. Sir?"
I said, "I'm looking for somebody."
"Aren't we all?" Big smile. A corsair comedian.
Penny thought it was funny. Penny tittered.
Slither scowled. Garrett scowled. The boys got real quiet. Robin looked past us, toward the street, as though he hoped the answer to his dilemma might show up out there.
"I'm looking for a girl. A specific girl. Eighteen. Red hair. So tall. Freckles, probably. Put together so nice even fierce pirates might take a second look and maybe shed a tear about choices made. Probably going by either Justina or Emerald Jenn."
The guys stared. My magic touch had turned them into halfwits.
Outside, Ivy told a dowager type that the shop was closed, only for a little while. She tried to disagree. The Goddamn Parrot took exception and began screeching crude propositions.
I moved around the shop, fingering whatever looked expensive. The boys had a lot of square feet and plenty of bizarre furnishings. "That description ring any bells?" I couldn't read their reaction. Its schooled neutrality gave nothing away.
Penny sneered, "Should it?" I could tell him from Robin only by the size of his mustache. Otherwise, they could have passed as twins. A strong strain of narcissism united these wild and woolly buccaneers.
"I think it's likely." I described the black magic stuff I'd found in Emerald's rooms. My descriptions were faultless. The Dead Man taught me well. Those studied neutral faces betrayed teensy cracks.
Penny for sure knew what I was talking about. Robin probably did. Robin was a better faker.
"Excellent. You guys know the items. Presumably, you provided them. So tell me to who." I picked up a gorgeous dagger of ruby glass. Some true artist had spent months shaping and carving and polishing it. It was one beautiful, diabolic ceremonial masterpiece.
"I wouldn't tell you even if... Stop that!"
The dagger almost slipped from my fingers.
"What? You were going to say even if you knew what I was talking about? But you would tell me, Penny. You'd tell me anything. I'm not nice. My friend isn't as nice as I am." I flipped the dagger, barely caught it. The boys shuddered. They couldn't take their eyes off that blade. It had to be worth a fortune. "Boys, I'm that guy in your nightmares. I'm the guy behind the mask. The guy who'd use a priceless glass ceremonial dagger to play mumbletypeg on a tempered oak floor. The guy who'll vandalize you into bankruptcy. Unless you talk to me."
I put the dagger down, collected a book. At first glance it seemed old and ordinary, shy any occult symbols. No big thing, I thought, till the boys started squeaking answers to questions I hadn't asked.
They babbled about the man who'd bought the stuff I'd described. Puzzled, I examined the book. And still saw nothing special.
Why had it loosened their tongues so?
Its title was The Raging Blades. That made it the central volume of the semi-fictional saga trilogy No Ravens Went Hungry. The Raging Blades was preceded by The Steel-Game and followed by The Battle-Storm. The whole related the glamorized story of an historical character named Eagle, who plundered and murdered his way across two continents and three seas nearly a millenium ago. By today's standards, the man was a total villain. Friend or foe, everyone eventually regretted knowing him. By the standards of his own time, he'd been a great hero simply because he'd lived a long time and prospered. Even today, they say, kids in Busivad province want to grow up to be another Eagle.
I asked, "Might this be an early copy?" Early copies are scarce.
The boys redoubled their babble. What was this? They were ready to confess to murder.
"Let me check this. You say a man with red hair, some gray, green eyes, freckles, short. Definitely male?" Nods left me with one theory deader than an earthworm in the noonday sun. Not even these rowdy reever types would mistake Maggie Jenn for a man. "Around forty, not eighteen?" That fit no one I'd encountered so far, unless maybe that nasty runt in the warehouse. "And you don't have any idea who he was?" I hadn't caught the colors of Cleaver's hair and eyes. "You know anything about him?"
"No."
"We don't know anything."
Eyes stayed stuck to that book while their owners tried to pretend everything was cool.
"He paid cash? He came in, looked around, picked out what he wanted, paid without quibbling about inflated prices? And wh
en he left, he carried his purchases himself?"
"Yes."
"A peasant, indeed." Smiling, I put the book down. "You see? You can be a help when you want. You just need to take an interest." Both men sighed when I stepped away from their treasure. I asked, "You don't recall anything that would connect all that junk together?" It had seemed of a sort to me when I'd seen it, but what did I know about demon stuff? Mostly, I don't want to know.
I got headshakes.
"Everything had its silver star with a goat's head inside."
Penny insisted, "That's generic demon worship stuff. Our stock is mass-produced by dwarves. We buy it in bulk. It's junk with almost no intrinsic or occult value. It isn't fake, but it doesn't have any power, either." He waved a hand. I stepped to a display box filled with medallions like the one I'd found in Justina's suite.
"You know the girl I described?"
Headshakes again. Amazing.
"And you're sure you don't know the man who bought the stuff?"
More of that old shaka-shaka.
"You have no idea where I might find this guy?"
They were going to make themselves dizzy.
"I might as well go, then." I beckoned to Slither.
Wixon and White ran for their lives for their back room. I don't know what they thought I meant to do next. Nothing pleasant. They slammed the door. It was a stout one. We heard a heavy bar slam into place. Slither grinned as he followed me outside.
35
Slither glanced back. "How come you didn't push them harder? You seen how they sweated, 'specially when you was messing with that book."
"Sometimes I take the indirect approach. Ivy, wait right here. Whistle if anybody comes snooping." Right here was the end of a breezeway that led to the skinny alley behind Wixon and White.
The shop had no back window. Surprise, surprise. Even in the best parts of town there are few windows at ground level. You tempt fate as seldom as possible.
The place did have a rear door, though. And that wasn't much more secure than a window. I wondered what the boys did that they needed a sneak-out door. Was that how they handled customer complaints?
That back door led to the room whither the boys had fled. It did little to muffle their argument.
"... could you have been thinking of, leaving it lay out like that?"
"I forgot it. All right?"
"You forgot it. You forgot it. I don't believe this."
"He didn't think anything about it. You saw that. All he cared about is where the Jenn chit is."
"Then why couldn't you tell him and get him out? He has to be suspicious, the way you were... "
"I didn't tell him because I don't know, love. She hasn't been seen since her mother came to town."
Well, well, well.
"Stop worrying about the damned book. A thug like that can't read his own stupid name."
Slither said, "Garrett... "
I waved him off, listened as hard as I could. I had to fill in here and there, from context, to get everything.
Me and the occult corsairs were going to have another talk.
"Garrett!"
"Wait a minute!"
An unfamiliar voice observed, "You guys better be ratmen trash hogs in disguise because if you ain't... "
"Which one you want I should eat first, Garrett?"
"... if you ain't, you're gonna be going outa here on a trash wagon." This sweet-talker was the spokesman for five thugs in slapdash butternut costume. I assumed that was the uniform of the neighborhood watch. I did mention how peaceful and confident the area seemed? Getting old and slow. I'd forgotten that, then I'd failed to stay alert.
They'd come from the direction Ivy wasn't covering.
I heard no more conversation behind the alley door. Naturally.
"Which one first?" Slither asked again. He was hot to go and sure he could handle them all. They weren't big guys and they all had bellies that hung over their belts. They had mean little pig eyes. Slither's growling got the boss pig thinking. He got a look like he thought maybe Slither could follow through.
Didn't seem like the best time to get into a fight. I still had a bottle of Miracle Milt's Doc Dread magic getaway juice. Last one. I whistled so Ivy would know something was up, then slammed the bottle into the bricks at the toes of the guardians of order.
I was lucky. The bottle broke.
A nasty dark stain spread like something alive. And nothing else happened. The brunos didn't twitch. They understood that something was supposed to happen. They didn't want to get it started.
I grabbed Slither's arm. "Time to take a hike."
A thin feather of mist curled up off the bricks. Well, better late than never. Only it leaned toward me, the one guy moving.
Slither said, "Aw, Garrett. Do I have to? Can't I just bust up one or two?"
"Go right ahead. But you're on your own. I'm leaving." The streamer of mist reached farther toward me.
I exercised my philosophy of discretion swiftly and with great enthusiasm. I grabbed Ivy as I flew out of the breezeway. That startled the Goddamn Parrot into one of his more memorable sermons.
Slither must have had an epiphany because he was stomping on my heels.
36
The Wixon and White street door was locked. The closed sign stood in the window, supported by drawn shades. I had a feeling the boys wouldn't answer if I knocked.
I said, "We'll check back after those characters start thinking we've forgotten them. Right now, we'll find the weather friendlier in another part of town." I could see several butternut outfits. They weren't easily overlooked since all normal traffic had deserted the street. Way it goes in TunFaire.
We moved out as fast as Ivy would travel with that idiot bird. The butternut brunos were content to let us take our trouble elsewhere.
After a while, I asked, "Slither, you know why I like working alone?"
"Huh? No. How come?"
"On account of when I'm working alone, there's nobody around to call me by name in front of people I don't want to know. Not even one time, let alone four."
He thought about that and eventually concluded that I was peeved. "Say! That was pretty dumb, wasn't it?"
"Yes." Why shield the man's feelings? That kind of mistake can be fatal.
On the other hand, the butternuts had no reason to keep after me. They had run me off before my pockets filled with doodads they doubtless felt only they had the right to pilfer. They could beat their chests and tell the merchants association they were mighty hunters and protectors.
I couldn't see the swashbucklers pursuing the matter. All they cared about was that book. I growled, "Shut up, you mutant pigeon."
I wondered about the book. I'd read all three volumes of No Ravens Went Hungry, waiting around at the library. What set the story in motion was a dynastic squabble among mobs of people who were all related somehow. The prize was an almost nominal kingship over a loose association of barbarian clans. Not one person in the whole saga was the sort you'd ask into your home. This hero, this thug Eagle, murdered more than forty people during his life.
No Ravens Went Hungry was based on actual events that marinated in the oral tradition a few centuries before being recorded.
I hadn't enjoyed it, partly because no likable people were involved, but more because the author had felt a duty to name every player's antecedents and cousins and offspring and, likewise, those of everyone they ever murdered or married. After a while, it got hard to keep track of all the Thoras, Thoralfs, Thorolfs, Thorolds, Thords, Thordises, Thorids, Thorirs, Thorins, Thorarins, Thorgirs, Thorgyers, Thorgils, Thorbalds, Thorvalds, Thorfinns, and Thorsteins, not to mention the numerous Odds and Eiriks and Haralds—any one of whom could change his name any time the notion hit him.
"What now?" Slither asked, prodding me out of my thoughts.
Ivy looked over his shoulder, expectant. He seemed more disappointed than Slither about having missed a brawl. But he did stifle the Goddamn Parrot whenever that stup
id harlequin hen started propositioning passersby.
"I'm going to go home, get me something to eat. That's what now."
"What good will that do?"
"It'll keep me from getting hungry." And it would set me up to get shut of him and Ivy and the parade that stretched out behind us.
I had plans.
37
I let Slither and Ivy make lunch. I retreated to my office to commune with Eleanor. Eleanor didn't help me relax. My restlessness wouldn't go away. Curious, I crossed the hall. The Dead Man appeared to be soundly asleep, but I wondered. I'd suffered similar restlessnesses before.
I didn't feel up to dealing with him, so I gobbled some food, fed the boys a quick, plausible lie about ducking out for just a minute, hit the cobblestones. I lost the people watching me by using the density of the crowds. The streets were busier than usual. There were refugees everywhere. In consequence, every street corner boasted its howling mad bigot who wanted to run them all out. Or worse.
I sensed another crisis in the wind.
Sure I was running free, I headed for the Hill.
I strode up to Maggie's door as bold as if I'd been summoned. I used that discrete knocker, over and over. Nobody responded.
Was I surprised? Not really.
I studied that grim, featureless facade. It remained grim and featureless. And uninviting.
I wandered the neighborhood for a while and wasn't challenged. I didn't stick with it long enough to press my luck.
I was halfway to Morley's place when I realized that I was no longer without a tail. The inept guy was on me again. Say what? Maybe he had something going after all.
I walked into the Joy House. There sat my two best pals, Morley Dotes and Saucerhead Tharpe, making goo-goo eyes at my favorite fantasy. "Chastity! What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"
Morley gave me a look at his darkest scowl, the one he reserves not for victims but for guys who venture to hint that they might possibly think the Joy House is less than the epitome of epicurean paradises.