by Glen Cook
Moonblight didn’t say so straight up, but she considered my reasoning simplistic and naive.
76
We were on Wizard’s Reach, outside the Dead Man’s range, approaching the intersection with Macunado from the south. Singe was in a dark mood over the behavior of the gray rat people.
I tried to talk her down. She was determined to be angry. She had influence enough with John Stretch to spark a war. That could not possibly turn out well for the grays.
Her brother’s people were everywhere. There were a lot of them. Mostly they went unnoticed by the folks they wouldn’t be shy about hurting if the boss rat lapsed into his own dark mood.
If he did, though, he might set off Deal Relway. Director Relway and General Block have a far larger gang.
I was working myself up to whine because John Stretch hadn’t contributed more to the current effort when I suffered an epiphany. That complaint would be unreasonable to the point of absurdity. John Stretch didn’t work for me, nor did he owe me feudal service. He was a friend taking time out of his own life to help because his sister had tied herself to me. Hell, he had had his number-one guy leave his regular work to hunk around with me and Singe. And, most of all, this was only our second day of vigorous operations.
It seemed like we had been at it a lot longer.
“That does not look like it will resolve itself soon,” Dollar Dan said as we reached the intersection. The light show continued sporadically. Glistening diamonds continued to fall. The rain had neither increased nor diminished. The drops remained exceptionally large.
Tara Chayne suggested, “That smells like a forced conflict between matched opponents who didn’t want to fight in the first place.”
The rest of us hoped she would say more, but she had nothing to add. We weren’t the only watchers.
No one should have complained that it was less than a hell of a show, but a certain personality type did feel compelled to belittle the demonstration. Someone who had been to the Cantard and survived had to tell everyone that they had seen bigger, flashier, louder, stinkier, and most certainly deadlier, in take your pick of major battles down there. And, though sprung from a petty mind, the claims were solid. When major sorcerers butted heads in the Cantard, the earth itself boiled and screamed. The sky tore. Shredded flakes of reality fell like crispy black snow.
Moonblight said, “I begin to suspect that we’re seeing what they want this to be. A show.”
“Um?”
“We did the same in our day. When I went against Constance we favored smoke and noise and temblors, but the strategy was that prolonged drama might bring the Operators out where we could hurt them.”
Barate asked, “Did it work?”
“Some. We roasted three like chestnuts. The tournament began to come apart. The other Operators went underground. We only ever found two more.”
I said, “We’ve got good stuff going and we already know who one of them is. If we catch him and get him to the Dead Man, we can break the whole mess up and zero in on the dick behind what happened to Strafa.”
Moonblight wasn’t listening. “Our problem now is, Meyness was a big player when we pulled our stunts. He won’t be sucked in by stuff we did back then. He was never a real team player-I remember thinking that he would’ve played our cycle out if he’d thought that he could win. He’s surely warned the other Operators.”
I supposed. With so many survivors of the last tournament still breathing, the Operators would have to account for them in their schemes-especially when those survivors started pushing back even before the tournament began.
I wanted to ask how many survivors were still with us, but we were close enough for the Dead Man to feel us coming.
He let us come a hundred feet farther, then, Inside quickly. There are enemies about with deadly intentions.
Enemies, huh? I couldn’t pick them out, but I did spot Target and another red top. Whoever took a whack at us would start a battle.
Indeed. And numerous innocents will become collateral damage. I will fog the minds of those nearest the house, but please do not dawdle. I cannot spare the attention for long. Once you are inside. .
I did not find out what then. His attention did turn elsewhere.
I explained to my mob; then we went, straight on like good Marines hell-bent, everyone holding on to a prisoner. Then I tripped over a dog. I couldn’t make out which one. They were all frightened and crowding close. I blamed Number Two because she was my least favorite.
Barate used his free hand to help me up while Singe broke her staff over the head of a weasel-faced, dried-up little guy about fifty who had popped up with one of those needle-bladed daggers meant to slide through links of chain mail. She might have killed him, she hit him so hard. We didn’t stop to give first aid. Target and his troops could clean up.
I wasn’t sure if I should treasure or be horrified by the look on that man’s face when he realized he’d been laid down by a girl rat.
One more villain tried. Target snagged him off a tangential dash, by the collar, and had him in restraints before he knew what was happening.
Inside. Feebly, like he had no more strength to spend. A battle may break out anyway.
Penny opened the door. Her eyes bugged at the parade of gray rats, dogs, friends, and allies on the steps.
A crossbow bolt struck sparks off brick beside me, so close it clipped a bit of hair. I ducked, looked back, could not pick out the shooter, who would be in for a truly bad time if Target caught him.
Then came a dull boom, huge, from an uncertain direction and indeterminate distance, then a long, muted grumble. The ground shook. Things rattled and clinked in Singe’s office and the Dead Man’s room. Something fell in the kitchen. Another crossbow bolt, as close as the first, slashed my right sleeve and thunked into the door, narrowly missing Penny, too. I dove past her. Ahead, between legs, I saw Dean, who had been watching the invasion develop. He hustled off to rescue his pots.
With scant help from the invisible force, we got everyone settled and, more importantly, quiet. Tara Chayne and Barate migrated into Singe’s office. Dollar Dan and Dr. Ted loomed over the prisoner collection, Ted failing miserably to look like somebody fierce.
Another distant rumble shook the house. Being about as brilliant as a human being comes, I opened the door and stepped back out to see what I could see. What I saw was a baby riot as red tops chased villains among gawkers watching the show on the Hill. I didn’t see anything to explain the rumbling.
I didn’t get shot. The sniper had moved on. It would not be in his personal interest to get caught with an illegal weapon.
I congratulated myself on being clever enough to get home just before the rain began to get serious about answering its natural calling.
Can you come assist me, please?
77
The Dead Man’s room remained untainted by the chaos burbling in the hallway. He was not alone, though. Penny was there pretending to work on a painting, escaping the confusion herself, and making a statement. If we wouldn’t let her play with the big kids, she wouldn’t do anything else that she didn’t have to.
Penny was the only one conscious there. There were leftovers from other roundups. They weren’t stacked in, but they did take up most of the available room.
In fits because he was running near capacity, Old Bones informed me, I need your. . assistance clearing. . out. Too. . much of my attention. . is consumed by the. . need to manage them.
“So why not have Penny. .?”
Penny. . does not have the strength or. . physical skills needed to. . handle one of them. . if my control slips.
Penny did that girl-kid thing where she sticks her tongue out the side of her mouth while pulling down a lower eyelid with a single finger. I’ve never figured that out and didn’t see how it fit the current situation, either.
I was pleased that she was no longer afraid to act like that.
The gods don’t want us to understand kids, nor are kids s
upposed to understand us-our lack despite us having survived kid-dom ourselves.
I suppose that, like childbirth pain, it just drifts off into the ether.
I noticed some friendlies behind the crowd, Playmate and my friend the poisoner. . Excuse me. My friend the apothecary, Kolda. He and Playmate must have become inconvenient to have underfoot, though I thought Playmate would have been useful removing no longer wanted houseguests. Maybe Old Bones was so distracted and pressed and frustrated that he had added them to the people freeze because that was easiest.
I glared at Penny. There was no way she couldn’t have managed those two just by making puppy eyes.
She asked, “Did you see what they did to the door?”
“What?”
“You’re going to need that Mr. Mulclar again.”
“Door? Mulclar?” Mulclar has an enduring problem with gas. I could smell him already. Feh! “What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything. Some people tried to break in. Some of them weren’t human. Himself had so much going he couldn’t totally deal with them. He only had me and Dean to help.”
And me standing there looking at Playmate and Kolda. Kolda was no ax-swinging barbarian, but Playmate, even weakened by cancer, could handle his weight in wildcats.
“It got exciting. He had to keep all these idiots controlled while he held off the people outside. They were working on the door with pry bars when some red tops finally stepped up.”
“I see. So. Who were they? Do we know that much?”
“No. At least Himself didn’t tell me and none of them offered a calling card. Probably had to do with those Operator creeps.”
“They didn’t know about the Dead Man?”
“Maybe not. Maybe they didn’t care. We didn’t get to ask.”
They would care if they knew.
She added, “Maybe the red tops will tell you what they get from the ones they caught.”
Maybe. I didn’t think I’d hold my breath.
That should’ve been the Dead Man’s cue for a comment about my cynicism. He forbore. Or he was too damned busy.
“Penny, how about you give me a hand clearing these deadbeats out?”
Playmate and Kolda looked like their minds were beginning to unfog.
Old Bones managed a feeble Do not. . waste time. Big pressure. . has begun. . to develop from. . outside.
Meaning he would have no attention left for doing anything with or to the new intelligence sources I’d brought in.
Exactly.
And that was his last word.
78
I chose a villain who looked ready to be returned to the wild, suggested, “Pick one, Penny. Then lead him out ahead of me and mine.”
Grumbling, she did as I suggested.
“Wait by the office door. I’ll get Barate and Ted to help.” If nothing else, somebody had to stand by at the front door in case of comebacks while the bad boys were being ejected.
We were at the door. Penny was set to spring it. I got caught up in one of those speculation loops, wondering what had become of Hagekagome. I’d seen no sign of her. Had she run away, been turned loose, or been chased off? Unlikely. Playmate was still here. He’d never let anyone that vulnerable roam around unprotected.
And what about Vicious Min? Was she still in that induced coma?
Penny poked me, hitting a pain point perfectly, no doubt having learned by observation. My once-upon-a-time, Tinnie, had been a master at finger-poke torture. “Wake up, old man! You’re the one who says we have to do this.”
“All right. Sorry. I took a second to worry. And to let Ted and Barate catch up. Go on, now. Open her up.”
She unbuttoned and flung the door wide-then put every ounce of her ninety-some pounds behind the shove she gave her victim.
He flipped over the porch rail.
“Damn, girl, I hope you didn’t break him.” I moved my man out more gently, then backed against the wall so Barate and Ted could evict their own.
“Why?” Penny asked. “They work for people who want to kill you. Who already killed Strafa.”
Barate shared her level of anger. He got a lot of muscle behind his toss.
Dr. Ted, though, wussed out. He still had trouble getting past that first-do-no-harm twaddle.
Then we were all tumbling over one another as we tried to get the door shut before something bigger than Vicious Min or the little blonde’s companion, wearing a head like a squid, got a tentacle in there among us.
Ted had no trouble going to work on that with his knife.
“What the hell was that?” the sweet young thing among us demanded. “That was one ugly fu. . freak!” She was panting and shaking.
I was panting and shaking. Barate was panting and shaking. Ted was panting and shaking but had not gotten distracted from keeping eighteen inches of writhing severed tentacle pinned to the floor.
I said, “That thing had twenty arrows in it.” Though, really, most had been crossbow bolts. Whatever, they should have slowed it down.
The street had been seething with excited red tops, some of them Specials armed for military-style action.
I had some military tools of my own. I was tempted to break them out. If I did, though, Deal Relway would insist on knowing why I had them and where I’d gotten them, after the dust settled
Penny asked, “Would salt do any good?”
We once had an encounter with a tentacle-thing that had responded to salt like a snail or slug.
“I doubt it. That was a whole different kind of beast.”
Ted said, “You could experiment on this piece, though.”
That hadn’t stopped wriggling.
I said, “How about let’s get us some fresh victims?” I stepped to the doorway to the Dead Man’s room.
Shifting four bodies out hadn’t freed him up. He now had nothing with which to offer an explanation.
Penny guessed, “He’s busy holding off that thing out there.”
Almost certainly. The people still in the room had begun to stir. Then some heavy-duty thumping started up somewhere else in the house, maybe over where Vicious Min was supposed to be sleeping.
“Penny, run across and tell Moonblight. .”
I didn’t have to finish. Mr. Tentacle had put the hoodoo on the kid, big-time. In seconds Moonblight was headed up the hallway looking grimly angry and as scary as Shadowslinger in a sour mood. She told me, “Stay out of the way, candy-ass!” Then, “My gods! I am going to blister that girl’s butt when I catch her.”
She knew what was out there and who to blame for its having come around. So. Here was more family squabble, of the sort where somebody was supposed to wind up hurt. Moonblight flung the door open and to hell with being fussed about what might be out there.
Tentacle-boy was right where we left him. But he-she-or-it wouldn’t be aggravating anyone else any time soon. Something had happened. Something that wasn’t all those bolts and arrows totaled up.
Something had carved off big chunks, including tentacles, legs, an arm, and a head. One big eye still had a dagger lodged in it, tip stuck solidly in the creature’s weird, cartilaginous skull.
Moonblight opined, “Well, hell, this isn’t so good.”
“Looks good to me,” I had to say. The contest in the street was breaking up. Bad boys had begun showing their heels with verve and enthusiasm. Tin whistles were putting the captured and fallen into restraints, ignoring wounds, taking no chances on dead guys only faking it.
There did seem to be an excessive number of fatalities. Red tops try to take their men alive. Prisoners can be passed along to the labor camps, where they pay their debts to society by contributing to public works. Plus, the camps pay prize money for breathing bodies.
79
Target and three battered friends came to the foot of my steps. Target’s eyes were up high enough to see Brother Tentacle’s remains. “Damn, that thing was ugly. Tough, too. We barely slowed it down.”
“How did this happen, t
hen?”
“Some little old granny lady. . Never seen nothing like it. Hell, I couldn’t see her at all, most of the time. There was just flashing steel and flying blood and screams in the street, like a bow wave headed here. Which ended with this mess. I only saw her clear for a couple seconds. She just stood there staring at your door. Then she sort of shimmered and went away again, leaving a couple more villains shorter by a head as she went. Very selective about who, too.”
“Sending a message.”
“She is for sure one seriously pissed-off old lady. I hope the Director don’t decide he’s got to hunt her down.”
“He wouldn’t be happy if he found her.” I looked to Moonblight for confirmation.
“Yes. Officer, do hope. Pray. That was the Black Orchid, come out of retirement.”
Target’s sudden pallor told us that he had been to that part of the world where the Black Orchid had made her name.
Moonblight continued. “She would be after Mariska. Thinking she might be here, but informed by your thing inside that she isn’t.”
So maybe Old Bones had gotten a little capacity freed up now. Or maybe he had let go of something else so he could deal with a deeper threat.
I said, “Folks, we need to get some more villains out of the house. Target. Buddy. I’ve got some more baddies for you. Some Scithe sent over. Some your boss sent. Some we caught on our own. They all have something to do with this creepiness. We don’t need them anymore. I’d be generally grateful, for minutes or more, if you could take them away.”
He sighed. “They’ll end up in the camps. Poor bastards. Most of them wouldn’t have gotten into this if they could’ve found any other work.”
A red top capable of sympathy and empathy? The wonders never cease. But, then, I was considering letting Niea skate. That poor bastard hadn’t done anything but his job.
Target told me, “Fine. I’ll take care of them. The Director will want to know what you got.”