Gilded Latten Bones

by Glen Cook

  Some bright monarch, having attained the throne with the assistance of the city garrison, had bought insurance against a repetition by moving all the barracks outside the city wall. Now the troops were in no position to put down a mutiny by the tin whistles.

  “That’s a big risk.”

  Block said, “We know. We took it because the Windwalker told us you figured the mess out and can tell us what we need to do to restore order.”

  Strafa made kissy lips from across the room.

  Now I had to deliver.

  “I still don’t know how Morley fits. Maybe the gods just wanted to get our attention. He’ll remember eventually.”

  “Time is wasting,” Block said. “Don’t go wallowing in it the way your sidekick does.”

  “What’s been happening is, villains from an old branch of the Algarda family tree, armed with the family talent for sorcery, found a way to stay young and beautiful — and to make dramatic physical improvements.”

  I had them. Everybody wants to be beautiful forever.

  “I don’t know how they do it. Your forensic sorcerers can figure that out. But it has to be the cruelest sorcery ever. They started out using dead people. Resurrection men have been around for ages, keeping a low profile, stealing corpses to sell to sorcerers for their research. The bodies could be patched together to use as... We don’t know what they used them for, back when. Maybe illegal stuff that a live villain couldn’t survive. We may turn up answers to a lot of old questions before we’re done.”

  “What changed?” Relway asked.

  “Several things. The most important was, the cost of staying young kept going up. The longer they lived, the harder it got to stay beautiful. Gilded latten.”

  “What does that mean?” Relway demanded.

  “Remember Belle Chimes? The Bellman? No? Doesn’t matter. He apprenticed in a jewelry shop. He told me about an alloy called latten. It has four or five metals in it. There is no fixed formula. The main ingredient is zinc. The point is, latten makes a perfect base for cheap jewelry, candlesticks, and whatnot, that look like something rich. The gold in one sovereign can coat more than a hundred pieces of latten jewelry — every one as pretty as a piece crafted from solid noble metal.”

  “Gilded latten?”

  “In this case, gilded latten bones.”

  Block and Relway both scowled at me.

  I said, “Their real troubles started when they took on clients outside the family.”

  They rewarded me with a nice little stir.

  I thought I understood the Dead Man a little better.

  “Demand for bodies outstripped supply even after they made a deal with the Works Department for its dead.”

  “You think they started buying them still on the hoof?”

  “I do. Live bodies should have a lot more of whatever it was they were taking.” I looked to Strafa. She offered an uncertain nod. It was not her area of expertise. “They probably only took the dying to start. But they got hungry. And maybe greedy.”

  Strafa said, “Note that the undead have always favored live victims.”

  The Director made a weird noise. “We can invoke the Undead Protection Acts! The King himself can’t overrule those because the King could be a vampire covering his own ass.” The ugly little man stamped around chuckling and rubbing his hands together.

  Block said, “You’re scaring the mundanes, Deal.”

  “Maybe. Maybe. But that has got to be our angle. Once we proclaim the invocation on the steps of the Chancellery, everything stops till the King proves he’s not undead.”

  I said, “I think that might be something like what’s really true.”

  “He’s a vampire?” Relway asked.

  “No. He’s a horndog fool who charged in with eyes wide shut. Anybody who’s seen the women in black has to know they can get anything they want from most any man alive. One broke the heart of a nancy tailor when she was getting fitted.”

  “You saying there’s more than one?”

  “Has to be. One was wounded at Fire and Ice. She couldn’t possibly have healed up in time to come at us here.” But if she had quick access to the life-magic she used to stay young...

  Singe reminded me, “That one is holed up in the Knodical with Prince Rupert and the King.”

  Morley asked, “You think they were taking turns being the old woman and the young woman?”

  “Something like that.” I hadn’t thought it out that far.

  “Where does the King fit?”

  “I think he saw and decided he wanted. They might have set him up. They could do themselves a lot of good if they controlled the head of state.”

  Morley didn’t say anything but I could practically hear him wondering how he had gotten involved.

  I said, “The Little Dismal notion came up before. You said you’d look at it. What happened?”

  Block said, “Arrests have been made. More will follow after the bean counters go through the records. Specials have taken charge. The wicked won’t tap that pool again.”

  “Excellent. Then all we have to do is to go down to their place of business and root them out.”

  “Their place of business?”

  “That abandoned warehouse on the Landing.”

  “Which abandoned warehouse?”

  “The one I sent John Stretch to tell you about the other day.”

  Relway growled, “You sent a ratman with a message?”

  Said ratman was in the room and he was not happy. “The message was delivered to the Al-Khar, at the door. The duty constable assured me that it would be passed along. She and the guards there would not let me deliver the message in person.”

  Block told a scowling Relway, “We just found our volunteers for the Bustee patrols.”

  Relway said, “It’s time to go into action.”

  Before anyone could suggest a better or more cautious course those two were clambering past the crippled front door.

  I was aggravated. There were matters in need of discussion and resolution.

  Even my new sweetie took off, claiming a need for face time with colleagues on the Hill.

  That angle of our thing scared the crap out of me. I could relate to Furious Tide of Light, no problem. But hobnob with her class? I didn’t think I had it in me.

  102

  The ladies from Fire and Ice stopped by. Jon Salvation floated in their wake. Crush bubbled. “It was so exciting, Mr. Garrett!” Mike sneered over her shoulder, silently pointing a fat red arrow at that “Mister.”

  Salvation declared, “This child can sing!” Both a statement and an expression of wonder.

  I said, “You should write a play with lots of singing.”

  “And dancing,” DeeDee said. “I’m a good dancer, Jon.”

  Salvation shuddered. He looked like he might melt.

  Mike continued to be amused. DeeDee’s dancing probably involved a progressive movement toward her birthday suit.

  I told Salvation, “I had an idea the other day you might think about. Suppose you send your understudies out to put your plays on in other towns and cities? You could keep them going for years.”

  He stared at me for a while, then said, “I think Tinnie is going to work out. She’s really dedicated. It’s like she’s trying to lose herself in something.” He glanced at Strafa, just downstairs after returning from the Hill. She shook her head at me.

  She looked the girls over, never down her nose, which left me that much bigger a fan. She had no problem being around the kinds of people who can be found around me. I had to make an effort to get along with the kinds of people to be found around her.

  This was going to be an unusual relationship.

  Strafa asked Mike, “You ready to go to my house?”

  Mike nodded. “Mr. Salvation. Are you sure it’s all right for us to take the coach?”

  “No problem. I’m used to walking. And I need to talk to Garrett.”

  Yet another of Mike’s secretive smiles.

&
nbsp; She figured Salvation was taken with one of her charges.

  She asked Strafa, “Can we stop along the way? None of us have anything but what we left the house wearing.”

  “Of course.”

  DeeDee and Crush were not in their work clothes but DeeDee’s taste tended toward flashy trash.

  “Before we go,” Mike said. And dragged me back to the kitchen. Dean and Dollar Dan scrunched up and let us in, Dean automatically beginning to rattle teacups. He had gotten the window fixed already.

  Mike pressed up against me tight. I said, “I’m flattered but...”

  “You ought to be. That Salvation.”

  “What about him?”

  “Is he really as naïve as he seems?”

  “Oh, yeah. More so. He’s good at faking being cool.”

  “So he doesn’t know about us?”

  I understood. “Actually, he does. He thinks it’s all kind of romantic.”

  She shook her head. She sneered a little. Part of me was proving not to be loyal to any one woman. “You’re alive after all.” She relented, stepped back. I was not as flustered as she had hoped. She asked, “What’s his interest? Guys his age, it’s usually Crush. But he treats her like he doesn’t know she’s a girl.”

  “He knows. I guarantee. But he doesn’t want her to think that’s what’s on his mind. If he’s interested in anybody that way, I figure it’s you.” Which I said for the hell of it.

  “Which is why his drool is all over DeeDee’s shoulders, I suppose.”

  “He’s shy. He doesn’t know how to interact with a refined lady.”

  “Wiseass.”

  “He’s good people, Mike. Don’t mess him up.”

  “We never mess first. It’s one of my rules.” She turned to the door but had a wicked thought. “But I’ll let me break it just this once.”

  She stepped back against me, wiggled a little. “You and the Windwalker split up, stop by.” Chuckling, she winked at Dean, pushed off, and left the kitchen.

  Dean said, “You don’t want her, I’ll take her.”

  “You old villain.” I took half a minute to catch my breath and let the swelling subside, then headed up the hall to make my farewells.

  103

  Morley told me, “I have to be in on this. I won’t contribute, but... It will be historic.”

  This was next day. Mr. Mulclar had finished fixing the door but it remained open in honor of the man’s special faculty. He has a digestive disorder. It doesn’t improve if he eats gravel. His leave-behind here suggested a diet exclusively of fermented beans and thousand-day eggs.

  Over the past twenty-plus hours the principals dealt with personal issues, political issues, squabbled over turf, and behaved like a pack of four-year-olds. The Director and General Block got heads together with some senior military people and talked them into staying out of the way unless there were disorders the Civil Guard could not manage.

  The people inside the Knodical remained stubborn. Strafa’s peers on the Hill made excuses for doing nothing, though they did agree to deal with any villains who came their way.

  I was convinced that a witch hunt was a sure thing, but the peace held.

  Block and Relway had every man helping keep the lid on.

  Belinda was in the woodwork somewhere, licking her wounds, sulking, scheming bloody retribution — and helping keep the peace.

  She had all her troops called up, too.

  The battle at Fire and Ice had gone her way. Some good guys had survived. Everyone from the sporting house escaped. Belinda owed her own continued existence to the superhuman efforts of Joel, who had proven his love.

  Joel was alive but not expected to stay that way.

  I suffered mild episodes of grogginess and was unsure of the boundary between reality and fantasy. Still, I boarded a coach hired by the Guard and rode it down to the Landing. The Landing is called that because some old-time explorer first set foot in the city there. The city already existed, but was savage, pagan, and uncivilized. Its people neither spoke the explorer’s language nor worshipped his god.

  The neighborhood swarmed with Civil Guards and Outfit soldiers.

  I told Singe, “I don’t think this is the smart thing to do.”

  “Then call it off.”

  “You’re kidding. You think I’m in charge? Besides, it’s too late.”

  “You could stop this cold by presenting a reasoned argument for holding off till better evidence is collected.”

  Me deliver a solid argument for restraint? Hopeless. Besides, a lot of people wanted to make something happen. It didn’t have to be a good something so long as some fur flew.

  Singe stayed close, on my left. So did Strafa, to my right. She snuggled up close enough to make me regret having left the house. Then she gave herself some space and became the Windwalker, Furious Tide of Light. The change was impressive.

  General Block, Director Relway, and Belinda Contague all were in sight. Morley was close by, surrounded by his old crew. John Stretch had brought a dozen of his hardest men, three of who screened Singe and me. The rest were out sniffing, which was unnecessary. The air was still and heavy. I could smell it myself.

  The Windwalker drifted upward. Singe and I caught up with General Block. He said, “The guards have done a runner.”

  “Think the villains have cleared out, too?”

  Morley squeaked something from a few yards away. “What’s up?” I asked Sarge.

  “He’s remembering something.”

  “The smell,” Dotes said. “And that place straight ahead. Made with the odd color bricks. That was the place.”

  The bricks in question were gray. Most bricks used in TunFaire are some shade of red.

  The scouts agreed. The gray brick building was the place. The smell increased as we got closer. There was a taint of death in it overridden by the stenches of urine and feces.

  The Guards, Outfit thugs, and the rest collapsed inward till we established a cordon round three and a half sides. The rest of one side faced the river and consisted of a pair of concrete-walled, silted channels where once upon a time army barges had been loaded from the warehouse. Someone had begun making an effort to clear the silt.

  I said, “That’s what you do with your thread men when you aren’t using them to set fire to people’s houses.”

  “There,” Morley said, indicating a small, broken, wooden door that opened on the divider between channels. A wooden ladder in a dangerous state of disrepair clung to the side of the warehouse nearby, leading to the roof. “That’s where I got out.”

  Singe asked, “You climbed that ladder?”

  “I did. All the way. In the rain. I stayed on the roof for a day and a half. I should have stayed longer. They heard me coming back down because I said something too loud when I slipped. I got a head start but it didn’t do me any good.”

  Directing Guards by gesture, General Block asked, “And how did you get in there in the first place?”

  Relway announced, “We’re set at all the entrances. Say when.”

  “When.”

  Morley said, “I don’t remember that part yet.”

  I asked, “How are you doing now? You able to keep going?”

  “I’ll have Puddle piggyback me when I can’t manage anymore.”

  Puddle expressed his opinion about that rather pithily.

  Civil Guards broke down doors. Outfit bone breakers rushed inside. Somebody yelled something about idiots not forgetting the godsdamned colored lanterns so friends wouldn’t bust the skulls of friends in the dark.

  I looked up.

  Strafa was way up there, watching the whole neighborhood. Her clothes faded into the background overcast. She was hard to spot.

  Singe gagged.

  “What?”

  “They opened something in there. I have to move back. It’s too much.” She headed toward the coaches. Most of the ratmen were doing the same. John Stretch went a few seconds after Singe. “It’s too foul.”

&n
bsp; Too foul for a rat?

  I smelled it. It was everything that had been there before, but a hundred times worse.

  Guards stumbled out of the nearest doorway, desperate for clean air. One headed toward Block. He had thrown up on himself.

  Block asked, “Is it really that bad?”

  “Worse than you can imagine, sir. Way worse.” He threw up again.

  I said, “I suggest we don’t send anybody in that we don’t have to.”

  Morley, using a stick for a cane, asked, “Remember the smell when we raided that vampire nest?”

  “Yeah. This may be worse.”

  Ten minutes later a pair of red tops emerged with a limp figure between them. The man screamed when they brought him into the light.

  “More stuff like that nest,” Morley said.

  There wasn’t much light for those of us used to the surface world. The overcast was growing heavier. It would rain again soon.

  The Windwalker plunged like a striking hawk. A bolt of actinic light preceded her.

  104

  I started to yell at Block. That wasn’t necessary. He grabbed able bodies and headed out. I told Morley, “I’ll be right back.”

  “Take your time. I’ll be here.”

  Strike point for the Windwalker’s bolt was two blocks away. I was winded when I joined the circle. The Windwalker remained upright, right foot planted on the throat of the woman in black. The latter wore a silver wig and was at her absolute peak of perfection, fully recovered from my brutality. She was singed and had a bad case of the shakes.

  The Windwalker growled, “Can’t any of you stop staring at her tits long enough to do something useful?”

  I have mentioned how good the woman looked going away. With her top torn open the full frontal view was even more striking.

  I rolled her over. That helped. The red tops bound her hands behind her and hobbled her. Relway took her wig. That helped some more.

  The Windwalker said, “Stuff her into a gunnysack if that’s what it takes.” She stepped close to me, shut down the Windwalker some and hit me with a minor dose of her own magic. “You did good. I’m proud of you. You might find a little something special in your bed tonight.”

  A big racket broke out back whence we had come. The Windwalker reestablished herself. She floated upward. “Yeah! I am so ready for this.” She shot that direction, did a loop and plunged. I charged after her, huffing and puffing. She swooped and darted like a smaller bird harassing a raider raven.