by Glen Cook
“I’m fine with letting the dumb bitch stew.”
Hardly charitable toward your sister. Not my place to judge, though.
I got busy telling about Flubber Ducky and Trivias Smith, ceremonial costumes and imitation antique swords.
“And you want to sabotage those weapons.”
“Yes. No. Not exactly. Hell. . That’s a good idea. If you could fix it so they’d just bend if you tried to stick somebody. . Ugh.”
I thought I had galloped blind into verbal quicksand. The woman was in no mood to play with it, though. Or she didn’t have a mind as skewed as mine. She said, “Creating a hilt insert to make them traceable can be done. Anything more would be a huge challenge. Barate, how is your mother doing?”
“I’m more optimistic. Her fingers have begun twitching. Ted says that she may be aware.”
“If she’s even halfway conscious, she’ll be back. She’s too strong and too bullheaded for anything less.”
Barate nodded. “She won’t go before she gets even for Strafa, that’s for sure.”
I decided we should get back to the man who had tried to strong-arm Moonblight. Pretty daring, that, going at somebody from high on the Hill. “Lady Machtkess. .”
“Tara Chayne.” She did not simper.
Barate nodded minutely, eyebrows up. He was surprised. Moonblight had accepted me into her in-crowd.
“Tara Chayne, then. Once I’m done here I’m heading home. I’m exhausted. I’ll report to my partner, then collapse. But. . if there is some way you can make yourself do it, could you come with me? He could mine a fortune in information from your encounter with that man. .” I stopped, certain I was wasting my breath. She had let herself be violated once, and that was once too often.
She stood up. “You two get busy on that platter. You must be starving. I’ll be right back.”
She went into the foyer, talked to somebody, I thought Singe. Maybe Dollar Dan, too, then silence, soon followed by whispering.
I asked Barate, “What do you think?”
“About what?”
“About everything in general and her in particular.”
“Tara Chayne. She’s letting friendship and a conscience usually in hibernation influence the image she shows the world.” When I didn’t respond, he added, “Most Hill folk are better people than you expect, once you know us.”
I stayed shut up. He might smack me if I didn’t agree. And that is a problem with villains. The better you know them, the more you get why they are the way they are. You may actually suffer a sympathetic reaction.
Which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t crack skulls and cut throats anyway. You have to deal with the monster that is, not the victim that was.
Tara Chayne came back. She announced, “I have everything I need to make the tracers. I do wonder, though, who you meant to do the following. You don’t have the talent. Neither does he.”
I hadn’t considered that. I glanced at Barate. He shrugged. “I didn’t think that far ahead. You and Richt Hauser are all we have left.”
“Then I suppose it will have to be me.”
I wondered if I shouldn’t ought to be suspicious. She was awfully cooperative.
People who cooperate enthusiastically usually turn out to be up to no good. They’re trying to con you. But, on the other hand, Moonblight had been into the conspiracy against the tournament before Strafa and I got recruited. And the days since then had delivered us all plenty of motive to get some licks in before the Operators got their production rolling.
51
The rain arrived as drizzle, better than the soaker I’d expected but still enough to leave the cobblestones dangerously slick.
Barate headed for his mother’s house from Moonblight’s place. He had business with her and Kevans both. The rest of us headed for Macunado Street. The dogs were not thrilled with the weather. They would have been happy to grace Moonblight’s house permanently. There was some good eating there.
Tara Chayne wasn’t ready to adopt.
On the upside, Singe was getting along under her own power.
Dollar Dan was disappointed.
“What is that odor?” I asked. Something lurked behind all the ripe aromas stirred up when it rains.
There was a pale fog with something like thin smoke mixed in. I caught notes of sulfur and something metallic. The keen noses around me might be able to explain.
A rat man said, “Something to do with that sorcery from before.” The air wasn’t moving much, but it was drifting from that direction.
Dan and Singe agreed but had nothing to add.
The hired wagon stood in front of the house. Min was not aboard. The owner had to be inside. Likewise, Penny and Ted. The team seemed to have been struck stupider than is usual in the dim and bloody-minded horse tribe. They looked like anybody who wanted could just lead them away.
Only, their barrels-of-rocks dumb and lazy show was happening in front of the house where the Dead Man denned up.
I wondered if Himself wasn’t using them as bait.
I grumbled, “Stinks like wet horse around here.” I followed Singe up to the stoop, she peeking back in case Dollar Dan suddenly could no longer restrain his passion. A questionable concern considering the proximity of the Dead Man.
Old Bones didn’t touch us, but he was awake and aware. Penny knew exactly when to open the door. She had exchanged the stylish outfit for her usual raggedy tomboy look. I heard voices from Singe’s office, as did Singe, who registered alarm. That was her turf. No trespassers allowed when she was out.
Penny told us, “Dean has some potato sausages warming.” Which, tell it true, was what I most wanted to hear right then.
“Those and some beer and I’m down and gone to heaven.”
Singe kicked up a cloud of dust in her haste to go defend her patch. I got there three steps behind.
Her office contained John Stretch, Saucerhead Tharpe, his totally nonromantic roommate Winger, Helenia from the Al-Khar, and a man I didn’t recognize. But no Dr. Ted. And where the hell was the rat man who owned the wagon?
Vicious Min, I assumed, would be in the room next door, which had been my office before I grew up and left home.
Winger, heavier now, more worn, and seedier than ever, fed my ego by reporting, “You look like shit on a stick, Garrett.”
“I feel worse than I look. I haven’t done that much walking since boot camp.”
I stayed in the doorway, watching Penny politely thank Dollar Dan while hinting broadly that he ought to go so the folks who lived here could crash. I checked John Stretch. His ears were good enough to follow the exchange. Dan wasn’t getting the message. But then he loosed a weird squeaking noise caused by the Dead Man’s direct touch. He wasted no time getting gone after that.
I felt Old Bones paging through my memories, suggesting that it would be a good idea to hit the sheets. Tomorrow would be another long day.
Even so, I started to get on Saucerhead and Winger about not having done the work we had given them.
His Nibs showed me a condensed version of their adventures.
They owed their lives to the fact that Deal Relway was a sneaky psychopath driven by an abiding need to know and a further compulsion to meddle.
Specials had been watching most of my closest associates-a matter of public policy nowadays if Old Bones could be believed.
Anyway, both had gotten into tight spots. Both had been rescued by swift Guard responses, leaving them tormented by mixed feelings about the law-and-order outbreak.
Both had been celebrating, using their newly won time to indulge in an effort to empty my beer kegs before somebody named Garrett cut them off.
“Thought you were going on the wagon,” I said to Winger. She had embarrassed herself with her drinking after she and Jon Salvation parted ways.
“Shit, Garrett! Today I foun’ out that life is too goddamn short to waste it trying to be somebody you ain’t. ’Specially, if it’s somebody somebody else wants you to be.”<
br />
A sentiment with which I did not disagree-though I had begun to realize that doing only what you feel like will make life unpleasant in the long run. You’ll make a lot of people unhappy.
I asked John Stretch, “Did you find out anything useful?”
“Almost nothing.”
Penny and Dean brought food. Singe chivvied her brother out from behind her desk, cleared clutter enough to make space for her tray. I settled onto a hard wooden chair with mine aboard my lap. “Nothing? That’s amazing.”
“It is. But there are no rumors, even. . Let me start over. Other than the excitement in the families being pulled in-and we identified only two of those-there is an information vacuum. There is no discussion outside the families involved, which they don’t want to be but are afraid that trying to ignore the mess could just make their Champion easier to kill.”
I turned to Helenia, already wilting under Singe’s regard. “Why are you here?”
“The Director sent me.” She sipped from a mug that had the look of one she’d been nursing all night.
You can’t trust sippers. They always have a hidden agenda.
“Why?” After she failed to say anything else.
“To be liaison.”
I pulled in a deep breath, then decided to save the air. I turned to the stranger. “Who are you?”
“I’m with her.”
“That’s an unusual name.”
“Merryman. Clute Merryman. Corporal of the Station for Criminal Statistics. Day watch. I tagged along to look out for Helenia.”
Penny brought in a folding chair. I glowered. She told me, “They were here when I got home. Yell at Dean.” She nodded toward the Dead Man’s room. “Or him.” Letting me know the visitors were here on Himself’s instructions. “They helped with Vicious Min.” Now she nodded toward the small room next door.
“Ah. And what happened to the wagon guy? And the doc?”
“Visiting across the way.”
John Stretch stirred uncomfortably.
There was nothing for me here right now. The Dead Man would get anything worth knowing faster than I could. And I needed sleep.
“I might as well hit the hay, people. Soon as I finish these wonderful sausages. Good stuff, Dean.” I used my fork on the last little chunk, waved it as the old man rolled a cart into the doorway. The cart carried beer pitchers and fresh tea. I wondered when we had acquired the cart.
Dean passed me my favorite mug, so ranked because of its capacity. “Oh my! Select Dark. I’ll hold off wasting time on sleep for now.”
The Weider Select Dark is good stuff. Really good stuff.
Business talk resumed. Other than to wonder what Old Bones might have gotten from Vicious Min, I didn’t concern myself much. It took only one capacious mug to free up thoughts of Strafa that I had been keeping suppressed for several days.
52
Singe was there beside my bed, armed with my favorite mug. It was filled with medicated black tea. Something had reached inside my still throbbing coconut to waken me. It withdrew after easing the pain a little.
“Did I make a total fool of myself?”
She raised a hand, thumb and forefinger narrowly separated. “Close. But not quite. Drink this. It’s from Kolda. You have work to do.”
She’d been up long enough to go see Kolda? I seemed to recall her gobbling the dark with enthusiasm herself.
Must be something she’d kept around, just in case.
She said, “You left the dogs out without food or water.” Apparently a crime, though I didn’t get it. Dogs are dogs. They belong outside.
I swallowed some tea. The medicine hit fast. Kolda knows his stuff. But it didn’t change my attitude toward the mutts.
“You just cannot do that sort of thing, Garrett. You have accepted responsibilities.”
I wound up to protest and argue.
She stepped all over me. “Go downstairs. Things need doing.”
Old Bones brushed me, mildly impatient.
“Huh?”
“That sorceress is here with the tracers for the swordsmith.”
“Huh?” Again, now with startled oomph! behind it. “Moonblight? I didn’t think she’d come within a mile of here ever again.”
“Himself says she is all business this time. Something happened on the Hill last night. . Oh! You were there, too.”
Intuition, maybe subliminally fed by the Dead Man. “All that flash.”
“Apparently. He has not filled me in.”
Interesting.
Kolda’s herbs did what they could, but a low-grade headache persisted. I’ve had some experience with the hangover phenomenon. This day might not be filled with sunshine and joy. I started it with the traditional vow never to do anything as stupid again until the next time. I was too old for this crap.
And we have heard it all before. Please move along. Wear comfortable shoes.
He was trying to scare me.
There was a grand conspiracy afoot. Penny waited to play her role at the foot of the stair. She herded me toward Singe’s office, no stalling or side trips allowed. We met Dean coming the other way. He said he had delivered breakfast for me and a light repast for our guest. I glanced into my old office as I passed. Vicious Min lay splashed across a couple of old mattresses, on her back, totally disheveled, in a coma induced by the Dead Man. My attempt to stop for a look failed. Penny and Singe both pushed me on.
“But what have we learned from her?” I demanded manfully. Though Singe claims I whined.
Very little. Her mind operates differently. She deals with situations by translating from our ways of thinking to hers. Her rest state, or ground state, is wholly alien. I am trying to work my way into her mind by tracing one memory at a time.
“Oh, come on!” My exasperation did not target him so much as the perversity of the universe where I was stranded. If reality was a solipsist bubble, the chief engineer needed his butt kicked till he got his mind right.
She may be a demonic immigrant after all.
An immigrant. Right.
53
Dean had not gone out of his way to provide a gourmet breakfast. He had whipped up something good for what ailed me-assuming I was clever enough and man enough to keep all that biscuitry in heavy sausage gravy down.
Moonblight said, “Good morning, Mr. Garrett,” far too cheerfully.
Nobody should be bright and cheerful that long before the crack of noon.
I tried to stifle the acid surging in my gut. “Good morning, ma’am.”
Which didn’t get so much as an eyebrow twitch. She was here on business. She was dressed for business. Sensible shoes and clothing suitable for travel by horseback or hiking in the woods, all top quality, genuinely meant for rough usage.
I tied in to breakfast with more enthusiasm than seemed reasonable considering the state of my hangover, all the while wondering what the old gal had in mind.
She told me what. “I will be joining you today, Mr. Garrett, to make sure nothing happens to you.”
Wow. Other than Strafa by circumstance, I never had a heavy-hitter Hill type for a bodyguard. Cool. Sort of. But scary.
Singe poured me more thick black Kolda tea, tapped the rim of my mug to let me know that I had no choice.
Everybody wants to be my mom. Even Dean.
There was extra spice in the sausage gravy. Another Kolda contribution, no doubt.
Penny brought a beaker of chilled water. Always smart to drink lots of water after a night spent processing proof that the gods do love us.
I grunted a response to Moonblight. If Old Bones hadn’t run her off, he must think her company wasn’t a bad idea. And my ego’s defenses were down enough that I could entertain the notion that it might be useful not to work today’s mean streets alone.
I faced Singe. “I take it Morley. .”
“As occasionally happens with your acquaintances, life got in the way of his babysitting obligation.”
Hurtful. “Babysitting” was
not her exact phrase. It was what she meant, maybe hinting that my friends could be feeling a little overutilized.
Which could be a problem in need of address. My friends do have lives of their own.
It is possible that the Operators have used hidden influence to generate distractions, too.
“Those nut jobs could be that well informed and organized?”
They could be. Crazy does not mean stupid. It does not imply an absence of genius tactically, strategically, or organizationally. However, it is far from certain that they are manipulating your environment.
“I’m not sure that helps.”
We will have a more certain perspective by the end of the day.
Which I took to mean that, yet again, I’d be out drawing fire while folks like Winger and Saucerhead, John Stretch, and others would slide around in the dank and dark looking to sneak up on the truth.
I swilled a final bitter gulp. I understood. There was a plan afoot. A scheme. Childe Garrett would appear to be the main operator. Maybe Old Bones had cooked something up with Tara Chayne so she would go dancing between the raindrops, playing chicken with the lightning, with me.
She observed, “You’re moving faster and showing better color. Feeling better, then?”
I was. Some. “I can manage the random linear thought. Smiles are a ways off, though.”
“Smiles? We don’t need no stinking smiles.”
Excellent. Images flooded my noggin, beginning with my itinerary, a jagged line that started at the house and zagged mostly eastward, toward the river, before it plunged down south to the Dream Quarter. A visit to the Al-Khar is not necessary but could be useful on the off chance someone there has learned something they are willing to share.
Nothing useful had come of Helenia’s visit. The presence of the boyfriend had been stifling. Not that she had had anything useful tucked inside her vacuous head. Nothing Old Bones cared to share, anyway. I’m sure he learned something useful about the secret workings of the Guard. Meanwhile, Helenia and the boyfriend abused my hospitality by about two gallons’ worth.
His Nibs took a cavalier attitude toward the expense.