by Glen Cook
Well. Maybe I was going to get some help with this after all, from the least likely source.
Saucerhead really can be a sensitive kind of guy.
And Singe, wonder of wonders, was stirring suddenly.
“So why didn’t you take the job?”
“Old Reliance, he’s too damned cheap for one thing. He just can’t get it through his head that it ain’t just a matter of rounding up one dumb female and dropping her off where he wants her delivered. He can’t get it through his skull that she can actually think for herself and that she can have made friends who’d be willing to look out for her. He just figures you’re trying to hold him up on your fee when you try to explain it to him.”
“You’d think he’d have figured it all out from direct experience. Whoops! Look here. It’s alive. Hi, sleepyhead. You’re the last one awake.”
Singe mumbled something.
“We’re just waiting on you.”
Singe smiled a weak rat smile. She probably thought she heard relief in my voice. Possibly she did. I was relieved that her problem wasn’t real.
Pular Singe’s recovery was dramatically swift once she decided that she needed to get healthy. Reliance’s name made a great whip.
Morley told one of his waiters to make a bread and cheese run while the rest of us sat around staking claims on being in worse shape than the other guy. Food was a great idea, I thought, but when the man came back with a basket filled with chow I didn’t feel much like eating.
A similar lack of appetite afflicted Saucerhead, Playmate, and Singe. And none of those three liked it even a little, either. They loved their food. Singe, in particular, always ate like a starved alley cat or one of her feral cousins. Everything in sight, steadily, gobbling so fast that the bugs never got a share.
I grumbled, “I think we’ve got us an invention right here. A new weight loss program for the lords and ladies.” Nobody else in this burg ever gets fat.
Soon enough, heads still aching and stomachs still empty, we proceeded as Singe picked up Kip’s trail. Though it had begun to get dark she had no trouble finding the way. Sight was never her master sense. Though it did become more important after nightfall. She could see in the dark better than Morley. And Morley has eyes like an owl.
This time the chase didn’t last twenty minutes.
This time the camouflage didn’t catch us unaware, either, though it existed as an addition to a building rather than as something thrown across a street. From the viewpoint of the silver elves the trouble was that the building they’d scabbed onto was one that Saucerhead and I knew. And had we not known it ourselves there were at least twenty local Tenderloin folk hanging around in the gloaming trying to figure out what was going on. That addition hadn’t been there half an hour earlier.
Playmate observed, “These people aren’t very good at what they’re doing, are they?”
“I get the feeling that this isn’t anything they’ve had to do before. What do you say we just charge in there and grab the kid back?” I wasn’t eager to get myself another bout of sleep because of my habit of waking up afterward with a ferocious hangover. I didn’t need another one of those. I was working on a couple already.
Still, they had the boy. Obnoxious though he was. Which didn’t incline them to throw him back out, apparently. They wanted him pretty bad.
I suppose a throbbing headache can impair your judgement. And a friend like Morley Dotes can have a similar effect. Once he had winkled out the complete details of our last encounter he was ready to go. “They aren’t going to kill anybody, Garrett. There are six of us.” Singe bristled, knowing she hadn’t been included in the count. “They can’t get all of us.”
14
They got all of us, most of the bystanders, quite a few passersby, and even a handful of people inside neighboring buildings who didn’t know what was going on and never knew what hit them.
I came out of it faster than before, my head pounding worse than last time. The first thing I saw was my eager beaver buddy Morley Dotes. Yet again. Only this time he had his temples grasped tightly and looked like he was working real hard on trying not to scream. Or was, possibly, contemplating the delights of suicide.
I grumbled, “Now we know why they didn’t ask you to be a general during the recent scuffle with Venageta.” Though considering the performances of some of the generals we’d had, who’d earned their bells by picking the right venue as a place of birth, Morley might’ve fit right in.
Dotes whined something irrelevant about the whole thing having been my idea and registered a plea for a lot less vocal volume.
“Pussy. I wake up feeling like this three or four times a week. And I function. What the hell are those people roaring about?” Neighbors not struck down were rushing into the street. In normal times their voices would have been considered restrained. Not so now.
They all stared at the sky.
I looked up just in time to see something large and shiny and shaped like a discus disappear behind nearby rooftops, heading north. “What the hell was that?” I glanced at Morley. “Never mind. Don’t tell me. Your cousins just got away in one of those flying lights that people keep seeing.”
“Cousins? Those things weren’t elves, Garrett. Not elves of any kind. Their mouths and eyes were all wrong. They didn’t have elven teeth. Maybe they’re some kind of foreign, deformed humans. You might look into that. But they’re definitely not elves.”
Playmate came around. Between groans he asked, “Did we get him back?”
“Kip? We didn’t even get a wink this time. Let’s see what we did get. Maybe that whore Fate has a heart of gold after all.”
We managed to collect a few scraps of silvery cloth and nearly a dozen other items of wildly varying shape and no obvious utility. Those included several small, torn bags made of a silvery, somewhat paperlike material. The rest resembled smooth gray rocks with a very unrocklike feel that came in varying regular shapes. Most had markings in green and red and yellow that looked like writing but which were in no familiar alphabet.
One of Morley’s men came up with a bag that hadn’t been opened. Its contents turned out to be two thick biscuits the texture of oatmeal cakes. They had a sorghum molasses odor.
“Food,” Playmate said. “We broke up a meal.”
“I could use something to eat,” Saucerhead said by way of announcing his recovery. “We still got that cheese basket?” He rubbed his forehead as he looked around. He has an amazingly high threshhold of pain but now he had begun to respond to it. “What happened?” He reached out and helped himself to the elven oatmeal cakes. He wolfed them down before anybody could remind him of the legends about fairy food.
Nobody answered his question. Because nobody had an answer.
“Lookit there!” somebody shrieked. In a second half the crowd were pointing skyward again.
The silver disk was back. And it was in a big hurry. It left a thunderclap behind as it streaked off southward.
“Hey! There’s another one!”
One turned into three in a matter of seconds. Only these weren’t disks. They looked like giant glowing gas balls. On a smaller scale I’d seen something similar in the will-o’-the-wisps of the swamps on the islands I’d visited during the war.
The glowing globes chased the silvery disk.
Morley murmured, “I’ve been hearing about these things for weeks but I’d about made up my mind that they were pure popular hysteria.”
I looked around for an easily accessible high place. I wanted a clear line of sight to the west, toward the heart of town. Toward the Hill. To discover if those lights ended up there. Because this looked like the sort of thing those people would pull. Squabbling amongst themselves using experimental sorceries while the folk of the city got run over.
Morley asked, “You think your friends the unemployed gods might be back, Garrett?”
That hadn’t occurred to me. “I doubt it. They were more reserved. They didn’t show themselves unless the
y wanted to be seen. Mainly because they couldn’t be seen by nonbelievers unless they made a huge effort.”
“I don’t think that these people would attract attention if they were given an option. Something intense is going on with them, sufficient to make being noticed the lesser concern.”
“Probably.” I did think he was right. Logically, if you were a foreigner running around in an alien town you wouldn’t let yourself be noticed unless it was unavoidable. “You think Saucerhead is going to croak on us?”
Tharpe had turned several indescribable colors, near as I could tell by torchlight. Torches and lanterns were turning up now that the curious felt safe enough to come out of their homes. Just as well that they hadn’t before, too. We’d have awakened to find ourselves plucked of everything but our toenails.
“I think he might want to die,” Morley said. “I think we ought to discover ourselves in another location sometime soon. This much activity is bound to attract lawmen.”
And he wouldn’t want the notice, however much he protests his innocence of the illegal of late.
Maybe old habits die hard.
These days, with the postwar economic depression becoming entrenched, the new secret police are very interested in any center of excitement. A minor bit no more scary than a street party can turn into a riot at the bump of a belly between an unemployed human and almost any nonhuman he might suspect of having moved into a human’s job while human soldiers were away risking their lives on behalf of the kingdom.
These are social problems that aren’t going to go away anytime soon.
I said, “We do have everything we need for a blowup.”
Morley nodded. He understood. He shared my concern.
He has become very sensitive in these changing times. He doesn’t like the way things are headed. Though it isn’t the conflict that bothers him. That can be exploited to produce big profits. What he abhors is the growing power of the Crown and its determined interference in our everyday lives.
An elven trait, to believe that that government governs best which doesn’t govern at all. Chaos is more fun. Anarchy is the ideal. And only the strong survive.
Morley would admit that a sustained harsh dose of genuine anarchy most likely would result in the extinction or expulsion of every species of elf currently calling TunFaire home.
I told Morley, “That was an absolutely marvelous suggestion, old friend. Can I assume that it’ll be you carrying Pular Singe...? What?”
Singe was still unconscious. But I wasn’t concerned about her. “Morley. I just saw Bic Gonlit. He was watching us from across the street.”
“So let’s get Singe put back together and see if she can get on his trail. He just might know where to look for Playmate’s kid.”
“You don’t think she can track Kip from here?”
“Not if he got carried away inside a giant flying wheel, I don’t.”
An excellent point. Not one I’d wanted to look at close up yet, though. You hope you can catch an occasional break.
Singe was getting her feet under her now, with a little help from Playmate.
“Let’s see about traveling on, then,” I told Morley. “I just spotted another familiar face. This one I recollect seeing in the vicinity of Colonel Block and Deal Relway in a none too distant past.” I made a big effort to remember such faces so I can exercise some sort of exit strategy when I see one again. “I’ll help with Singe.”
15
The secret police evidently didn’t have an interest strong enough to pursue us. At the moment. But I was willing to bet that I’d hear from Westman Block if anyone in the Tenderloin had recognized me.
Colonel Westman Block, erstwhile acquaintance of that handsome Marine named Garrett, oversaw all police forces and functions in TunFaire. That included the secret police. Theoretically. On paper.
We gathered in a dark place, half a mile from the excitement, and considered, “What now?”
Singe said, “I cannot possibly follow a man who flew away through the air, inside a flying boat made out of metal.” She then wondered aloud, “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because Morley said almost exactly the same thing just before you woke up. We decided to chase Bic Gonlit instead.” She knew the name from discussions of what was happening, back when we were tracking Kip. “As soon as we were sure we’d shaken the police.”
“You must tell me more about this Bic Gonlit.”
Playmate and I both tried to explain Bic Gonlit and his place in what was happening. A challenging task, of course, since we had almost no idea ourselves. I added, “Only, I’m not sure if he’s actually part of what happened this afternoon.”
“You people like to think you are so much smarter than us but sometimes you are really dumb, Garrett. You start talking before you think. How do you expect me to follow someone who is just another face in a crowd?”
“She’s got you there,” Morley said, content to leave all the blame with me. “I could use a little more information myself. Bic Gonlit is only a name to me.”
“He’s this little round fat guy who wears funny boots —”
“There was a little round fat man with hugely thick-soled boots I saw several times on the way down here. I thought he might be doing something for you because your parrot was right there near him.”
“I didn’t see him,” Playmate said. “Not the bird, either.”
“Nor did I,” I confessed. My parrot. Following me around. And I never noticed.
It might be time to consider alternative careers.
“I noticed the bird,” Singe said. “I saw the fat man, too. But I did not know Mr. Big was following him. I thought he was following you, Garrett. He is still around. I saw him just a minute ago. Yes. Over there. Where we came from. Up on that cornice thing where the pigeons are sleeping.”
“I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to see Weider and tell him I’m taking the security job at the brewery.” I felt completely blind and useless. It was so dark I couldn’t find the end of my arm.
“There is a short little fat man over there watching us, too,” Singe told me. “He is hiding behind those steps right under the parrot.”
Like anybody could see all that if they just looked. Grrr! The only thing I could see was a glow in the distance, about where we’d lost track of Kip.
I really was inclined to tell Max Weider I was ready to come on board. Truly. At that moment. But, before I hung it up, I had to try another stunt or two. “I have a thought. We’re all tired. Why don’t we head for my place? If Gonlit really is following us, we can lead him to the Dead Man.”
I was past ready to go home. I was desperate for something to take the edge off my headache. And I was hungry. And I was tired. Getting knocked unconscious regularly takes the vinegar out of you fast, even if you’re not going out by getting bopped on the head.
My plan, as proposed, didn’t stir a word of protest. Much to my amazement. Morley is naturally contentious. He’ll get involved in arguments just to entertain himself. But all he said was, “I’m worn-out, too. And The Palms is headed into its busiest time. And I left Puddle in charge.”
“I got a thing going myself,” Saucerhead said. “I need to get back, too, unless something starts happening.”
Even Playmate was willing to shut it down for the night. And to desert me when he did. “Nobody’s been at the stable all day. I need to get back there before the animals get so upset they...” He stopped. I think he was about to let slip something terrible about the conspiracy amongst horses but realized that me finding out might turn out to be bad luck for him. He changed the subject. “And somebody’s going to have to tell Kip’s family what’s happened.”
A while later, after a period of silence, Playmate asked, “You wouldn’t consider taking care of that for me, would you, Garrett?”
“Not likely, old buddy. Not likely. After today’s adventures you’re not real high on my ‘please, God, let me do him a favor’ list.”
The tiniest flicker of a smirk crossed Playmate’s features before he settled on an expression of stolid resignation. I had the feeling that I’d just gotten jobbed but couldn’t figure out how.
16
I never saw the Goddamn Parrot before he dropped onto my shoulder in Wizard’s Reach, two blocks from home. Or one block through the alley to my back fence. By then the only companions I had were the bird and Pular Singe. None of us were inclined to lose any sleep looking for Cypres Prose anymore.
Maybe I was just telling myself what I wanted to hear when I reasoned that Kip was in no physical danger because the silver elves had shown no inclination to do anyone any permanent harm. So far.
Kip’s personality might trigger the extra effort. The bird said nothing. His presence was the message. The Dead Man knew we were coming. And he knew that Bic Gonlit was on our trail.
Now we would see how well the little fat man had done his homework.
If he knew much about the Dead Man he wouldn’t get too close to the house. Not as close as he’d gotten in the alley. Though how close is really too close is something even I don’t know.
The Goddamn Parrot whispered, “He has stopped, Garrett. He has positioned himself behind the Bailnoc stoop. From there he can see the front of our house while he stays far enough removed that I cannot read much more than his moods.”
He didn’t seem to mind Singe finding out that he could chat with me through the ugly rooster. I didn’t think he was dumb enough to believe that she was too dim to catch on. So he trusted her completely.
Handy to know just how trustworthy your associates are.
I looked back. I couldn’t see a thing. I wondered how Gonlit could be watching me. I wondered about his connections. He’d have to have some potent ones helping right now. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to follow me around unnoticed.
That takes some advanced magic.
I think I’m pretty good at this stuff I do. I don’t normally get tailed without noticing unless the tail comes armed with some pretty potent sorcerous tools.