by Glen Cook
I started out not really trying to hurt anybody. I just wanted to fend them off and get away. But they were playing for keeps. I decided I'd better argue more convincingly. My stick wasn't getting the message across.
Somebody whapped me up side the head with a house. It had to be a house. Nobody dwarf size could hit that hard. The lights went out.
Usually I come around slowly after I've been sapped. Not that I have a lot of experience with that. This time I wasn't slow, maybe because I was so excited about finding myself still alive, if a little run down.
I was bouncing along facedown. Cobblestones slid past inches from my nose. The hairy runts were taking me somewhere rolled into a wet blanket. They were skulking along through an alley. Maybe they wanted us to party some before they let me swim the river with rocks tied to my ankles.
I didn't like the situation. Naturally. Would you? But there wasn't a whole lot I could do about it. I couldn't even yell. My throat felt like I'd tried to swallow cactus.
However.
The dwarves stopped. They chattered gutturally. I strained, lifted my head, looked around. My temples throbbed. I saw red. When my eyes cleared, I saw a man blocking the alleyway ahead. He was alone and there were eight dwarves around me, but the numbers didn't bother him.
His name was Sadler. He was one of Chodo Contague's top boys, pure death on the hoof. The dwarves chattered some more. Someone was behind us, too. I couldn't twist around enough to see him, but I could guess. Where Sadler went Crask was sure to follow. And vice versa.
Those two are hard to describe. They're big men, have no consciences, will cut a throat with no more thought than stomping a bug. Maybe less. And you can read that in their eyes. They're scary. They probably eat lye for breakfast.
Sadler said, "Put him down." His voice was cold and creepy.
Crask said, "And get out of here." His voice was so much like Sadler's, people had trouble telling them apart.
The dwarves put me down, all right, but they didn't get out of there. Which made it sure they were from out of town. They might be thugs, but any thugs native to TunFaire wouldn't have argued for an instant. Nobody in his right mind bucks Chodo without he has an army behind him.
Sadler and Crask were efficient and ruthless and not even a little sporting. They didn't argue, they didn't negotiate, they didn't talk. They killed dwarves till the survivors decided to get the hell out of there. The two didn't chase anybody. They had what they had come for, which was one broken-down confidential agent named Garrett.
Crask grabbed the edge of the blanket and gave me a spin. Sadler said, "You're keeping weird company, Garrett."
"Wasn't my idea. Good thing you guys happened along." Which I said knowing they hadn't happened along at all. They probably wouldn't have lifted a finger if they hadn't been sent.
"Maybe you won't think so." That was Crask. "Chodo wants we should ask you a question."
"How'd you find me?"
"Your man told us you went to Dwarf House." Dean would. Even with the Dead Man watching over him. He isn't that brave. "We saw you get knocked down. You got to learn to control that tongue, Garrett." I didn't remember saying anything but I probably did. Probably asked for it. "We don't want to lose you." That was Sadler talking. And what he was really saying was that he didn't want me to get myself smoked before the day came when Chodo decided the world would be better for my absence. Sadler looks forward to that day like it might be for the heavyweight championship of Karenta.
"Thanks anyway. Even if you didn't mean it." Crask helped me to my feet. My head whirled. And ached. It was going to ache for a long time. "Maybe we're even now."
Sadler shrugged. Damn, he's a big one. Two inches taller than me, fifty pounds heavier, and not an ounce wasted on flab. He was losing a little hair. I'd guess him at about forty. A real ape. A doubly scary ape because he had a brain.
Crask is the other half of a set of bookends, almost like he stepped out of some mirror where Sadler was checking his chin for zits.
Sadler shrugged because he wasn't going to put words into the kingpin's mouth. Chodo has the idea he owes me because a couple of my old cases helped him out in a big way. In fact, I saved his life once. I'd rather not have. The world would be a better place without Chodo Contague. But the alternative had been worse.
"Let's us guys walk," Crask said. He got on my left and supported me by the elbow. Sadler got on my right. They were going to ask some questions and I'd better give some answers. Or I'd be very unhappy.
There's my life in a nutshell. Cheerfully skipping from frying pans to fires.
I couldn't for the life of me think why they were interested in me now, though. "What's up?"
"It ain't what's up, Garrett, it's who's down. Chodo got kind of crabby when Squirrel turned up dead."
I stopped. "Squirrel? When did that happen?" I nearly fell on my face because they kept on going
"You tell us, Garrett. That's why we're here. Chodo sent him down to help you. A favor, because he owes you. Next thing we know a city ratman finds him in an alley with his guts hanging out. He wasn't much, but Chodo considered him family,"
Catch that? Always Chodo, never Mr. Contague? I've never figured it out. But I didn't have time to wonder or ask. It was time to talk "A woman came to the house. Called herself Winger. Not a local. She pulled a knife on me in the office. The Dead Man froze her." I awarded myself a smirk when Crask and Sadler jumped. The only thing in the world that bothers them is the Dead Man. He's a force they can't cope with because they can't kill him. "I was going to go get Morley Dotes to tag her after I pushed her out, but Squirrel turned up right then and volunteered. I told him to find out where she went and who she saw. The Dead Man said somebody named Lubbock sent her."
"You know anybody named Lubbock?"
"No. I never saw the woman before, either. She was real country."
They spread out a little. They were going to indulge me, give me the benefit of a shadow of a doubt. Maybe. Sadler asked, "This tie in with the hit on your woman?"
"Maybe. This Winger was looking for a missing book of some kind. I don't know why she thought I had it. She didn't say and the Dead Man couldn't get it out of her. Later, though, another woman showed up. Wanted to hire me to find a guy called Holme Blaine who stole a book from her boss, who wanted the book back bad. She was a redhead Tinnie's size and age and build. Maybe somebody mistook Tinnie for her."
They thought. Crask said, "It don't add, Garrett." Accusing me of holding out.
"Damned straight it don't. It might start to if I can find this Holme Blaine."
They grunted. They've spent too much time around each other. They're like those married couples that get more and more alike as time goes by. Crask asked, "Why visit the dwarves?"
"There're dwarves in the thing."
"No shit. Your pals back there. You smartmouth somebody in Dwarf Fort?"
"Different gang. From out of town."
"Figured that." They're that confident of their reputation. Sadler asked, "How do you get into these weird things, Garrett?"
"If I knew, I wouldn't get into them anymore. It just sneaks up on me. You going to show me where Squirrel bought it?"
"Yeah."
I was doing something right. We were on the street now. In view of witnesses. I was a little less nervous. Not that those two would scruple against icing me in front of the whole world at high noon if they thought the time was right. Half the unresolved killings in TunFaire can be pinned on the kingpin's boys. I don't see anybody rounding them up for it.
Chodos secret of success is he don't muscle in on our overlords' rackets. He works his own end of the social scale. He's much more at peril from his own than from the vagaries of law or state.
Equal justice for all. As long as you make it yourself.
They had me glad I'd done some running by the time we got to Squirrel. It was a hike and a half, all the way to the skirts of the Hill, where our masters have raised their fastnesses upon the heights. I
knew our trek was at an end when we reached a block where a few hardcases loafed around, holding up walls, and the street was otherwise empty.
Squirrel had gone to his reward in an alley that ran downhill steeply. We entered from the high end. Sadler told me, "He got it here," about fifteen feet into the shadows. It would have been light there only briefly, around noon "You can't tell ‘cause of the light, but there's blood all over. He ended up down there about fifty feet. Probably tried to run after it was too late. Come on."
The body lay ten feet from the bottom end of the alley. Somebody with a sharp blade and strong, probably using a downward stroke, had sliced him from his right ear down the side of his throat and chest all the way to his bellybutton bone deep. "Last time I saw a wound like that was when I was in the Corps."
"Yeah," Crask said. "Two-handed dueling saber?"
Sadler demurred. "Couldn't get away with lugging one around I say. Just sharpness and strength."
Crask squatted. "Could be. But how do you get that close to hit that hard with a legal knife?"
They meandered off into a technical discussion. Crafts men of murder talking shop. I squatted to give Squirrel a closer look.
Some of us never get used to violent death. I saw plenty in the Marines and didn't get numb. I've seen more than enough since. I still don't have calluses where Crask and Sadler have them. Maybe it's hereditary. Squirrel probably earned what he'd gotten, but I mourned him all the same. I noted, "He wasn't robbed or anything."
"He was plain hit," Crask said. "Somebody wanted rid of him."
"And him such a sweetheart. It's a sacrilege."
If those guys have a weakness, it's lacking a sense of humor. Their idea of a joke is promising a guy to turn him loose if he can walk on water wearing lead boots. My crack didn't go over.
Sadler said, "Chodo doesn't like it, Squirrel getting offed. He wasn't much good but he was family. Chodo wants to know who and why."
"You guys using carrier pigeons now?" Chodo lives way the hell and gone out in the sticks, north of town. There shouldn't have been time for all the back and forth implied here.
They ignored me. They get that way about trade secrets—or anything they don't think I need to know. Crask said, "You get anything here we don't?"
I shook my head. All I could tell was that Squirrel wouldn't be doing much dancing anymore.
Sadler said, "Bet the iceman used both hands. You'd get more on it that way."
Crask told me, "We're going to keep an eye on you, Garrett. Something don't add up here. Maybe you didn't tell us everything."
Hell, no, I hadn't. Some things Chodo doesn't need to know. I shrugged. "I find out who did it, you'll be the first to know."
"Take it to heart, Garrett. Take it to bed with you. Get up with it in the morning. Chodo is pissed. Somebody is going to pay." He turned to Sadler and started in on whether the killer had cut upward or downward. Ignoring me. I'd been dismissed. Warned and dismissed. Chodo owed me, but not the life of one of his men. Maybe I was nearer even with him than I'd thought.
I checked Squirrel again, but he still wasn't sharing any secrets. So I got out of there.
Heading home, I saw something I'd never seen in TunFaire before, a centaur family trotting down the street
The fighting in the Cantard must have gone berserk if the natives were fleeing it, too. I'd never heard of centaurs ranging this far north.
Things must be going real bad for Glory Mooncalled and his hatchling Cantard republic. He'd be gone soon and the world could get back to normal, with Karentine killing Venageti in the never-ending contest for control of the mines.
I'd have to mention the centaurs to the Dead Man. Glory Mooncalled is his hobby. The mercenary turned self-crowned prince has lasted longer than even my career houseguest expected.
14
While walking home, I noticed that, though it was still too early for morCartha high jinks, there were plenty of fliers aloft. Like every fairy and pixie in the known universe, with a random sample of other breeds. I nearly trampled a band of gnomes while gawking at the aerobatics. The gnomes yowled and cursed and threatened mayhem upon my shinbones. The tallest didn't reach my kneecap. They were feisty little buggers.
I stood and gawked while they stomped off, cocky because they'd intimidated one of the big people. I didn't get around to cussing back because I was numb. You don't often see gnomes. Not in town. They look kind of like miniature dwarves who sometimes find time to shave. "What next?" I muttered, and "Never mind! I don't want to find out." Just in case my guardian angel was going to grant my every wish.
I reported to the Dead Man. He seemed more interested in the gnomes and centaurs than in what had happened to me. I held my tongue while he mulled, what I'd gotten from his pal Gnorst, then digested the news about Squirrel. Then he queried, Why do you not want the killer to have been the woman Winger?
"I liked her. In an off-the-wall sort of way. She had balls that drag the ground."
You get your priorities scrambled. You mentioned her name to Mr. Crask and Mr. Sadler.
"I did indeed. I wasn't thinking clearly at the time. A mistake, but with some justification." They would find her and ask her some hard questions. Unless she did the unlikely and headed for her home village fast. Like about the day before yesterday.
You did not mention the book.
"I was playing with pain. I managed to think a little. I thought I should keep something to myself."
Wise decision. If for the wrong reason. Consider the power of the book, then consider that in the hands of Chodo Contague.
I did. And maybe had before, unconsciously. "Not a good plan."
Not for anyone but Chodo Contague. A fancy keeps floating through your mind. It may not be as difficult as you think.
"What?" He'd blindsided me again.
To find an eyewitness to the Squirrel person's demise.
"You're kidding. Chodo's in it. People are going to sew their lips together."
He does not intimidate everyone.
"You weren't there, Fearless One. Everybody that he don't intimidate is buried. Or soon will be."
You noted considerable aerial activity out there. How often do fairies and pixies catch your attention? More often than children and pets? Generally such remain part of the background unless they force themselves upon you. And in that you are not unique. The Squirrel person's killer probably was careful about witnesses, but did not think to check the air above.
"It's an idea. One of your more outrageous ones, but an idea. How am I supposed to con some witness into talking?"
Pass word to the fairy and pixie communities saying you will pay for information about what happened in that alley. Those people are not afraid of Chodo Contague. In fact, they hate him. They would not help him. If he has a similar notion, they will thumb their noses at his men. They can fly faster than his thugs can run.
Legwork again. He was coming up with these things just to get more hoofing around town.
Still, it might be worth a shot. If I could get the message across. It's hard to communicate with those people. They speak Karentine but somehow it isn't at-ways the same language I speak. You have to be careful what you say and precise in how you say it. No ambiguities. No words or phrases that can be understood in more than one way. You do and ninety-nine times in a hundred they'll take you the wrong way. I think they do it on purpose, to give us a hard time.
I'd never thought much about it, but there are peoples with little to fear from Chodo. It might behoove me to find friends among them. Sure as the sun will rise in the east, there'll come a day when Chodo and I go head-to-head; I don't want that day to come and I expect he doesn't, either, but we both know our natures make it inevitable.
I said, "Crask and Sadler got me spooked."
They did more good than harm.
"I heard that. Those dwarves weren't taking me to a party."
Time to consider taking on backup.
"Yeah." He was being awful practical. "
I wanted to keep the little leaf-eater out of it but I'm really not at my best when the odds are eight to one."
I sensed faint amusement over there. There are other possibilities. The groll brothers, Doris and Marsha, make effective bodyguards.
"They also tend to stick out in a crowd." Grolls being part giant, part troll, and the brothers in question being twenty feet tall and green. And they don't speak Karentine. The only man I know who speaks grollish is Morley Dotes. I'd have to enlist him anyway. "Why don't I sleep on it?"
Because if you sleep now, you may waste the chance to enjoy sleeping a few thousand times more. It is not legwork that is going to kill you, Garrett. It is lack of legwork.
"Who walked twenty miles today? And who stayed home contemplating his own genius?"
I pondered the mystery of Glory Mooncalled.
"That'll help us out." How old Chuckles preens and crows when he guesses right what the mercenary will do next. And how he cringes and whines when that sumbitch surprises him.
I hate to admit it, but I kind of long for the old days last year when Mooncalled was on our side and just gave the Venageti fits and made our generals look like simpletons.
Maybe I should worry more. Mooncalled may be the most important man alive today. The fate of his republic will shape that of Karenta and Venageta. If the two kingdoms can't squash him and regain access to the silver mines that are the object of the ancient war, sorcerers on both sides will soon be out of business. Silver is the fuel that makes their magic go.
Mooncalled's strategy is to hang on till the wizards fade. He doesn't fear our mundane generals. Most of them can't find their butts with a seeing-eye dog. They get their jobs through brilliant selection of parents, not competence. Mooncalled may not be a genius, but he can find his butt with either hand, in the dark, which is plenty good enough when dealing with Karentine generals or Venageti Warlords.