by Glen Cook
I explained, not for the first time since we teamed up. I said, "It's like being a private soldier. A client hires me, I'm his one-man army, except I don't bust heads or break arms, I just find out things. The client I have now wants to find out as much as he can about these two cults."
No-Neck made a connection. "Like dat might be somebody what has to help decide who gets dat last temple."
"There you go." Far be it from me to disabuse a man of an erroneous intuition. Not that he was entirely off the mark.
"I guess it cain't hurt. You ain't involved wit' dem. If you was involved wit' dem I'd hafta raise a holler on account of some of dese gods would do any damned ting to stay on da Street."
"Ain't dat da troot." If you are big time, going off with the holy rutabagas won't get you no respect at all. Better gone than playing out of the Dream Quarter.
"Well, den let's look in dat dere place where da Shayir got bounced. But I guarantee you ain't gonna see nuttin' exciting."
We went into the Shayir place. Always quick on the uptake, I muttered, "Not going to find anything exciting here."
"Cleaned it out." No-Neck had a trained eye, too.
The dump was as bare as a thousand-year-old thunder lizard thigh bone, emptier than No-Neck's head. He said, "We done took all da stuff down to da place at da end. Goin' ta paint and fix up here."
I glanced right. I glanced left. I didn't stand all the way up because the ceiling was too low. The place was barely fifteen by twelve, last stronghold of an ancient religion, first bridgehead of a new one. It seemed touched by the same sad desperation you see in middle-aged men and women who can't let go of a youth that has long since stolen away.
"So let's stroll over there and count the silver."
"Silver? Dese is small gods, Garrett. Dey probably didn't even have no copper. Down here dey're da kind we call pewter gods. Petty pewter gods. Da pot metal boys." He leaned close, ready with a garlicky confidence. "You never say dat where dey might hear you, dough. Da fard'er dey slip da more dey demand respect, got it coming or not. You go on up dere to da high end of da Street, dem gods you don't never see no proof dey even exist. Dey ain't got time to be bodered. Down here, dough, dey might be running deir own bingos. And you better not cut dem where dey can hear it."
That sounded like a notion worth keeping in mind.
"I been front wit' you, Garrett. Tell me something straight."
"I'll try."
"How come you got dat stupid stuffed bird on your shoulder?"
The Goddamn Parrot. T. G. was being so good I'd forgotten him. "He isn't stuffed. He's just pretending." What the hell. I plucked the bird and studied him as we climbed crumbling steps on the face of the levee. They were the conclusion of the Street. No repairs had been offered them in recent lifetimes. The smell of river mud hung like an all-pervading mist. The air was thick with the flies that breed in the mud. They were nasty, hungry little flies.
The Goddamn Parrot was breathing, but his eyes were milky. "Hey, bird. Show some life. Got a man here wants to hear one of your jokes."
That flashy jungle chicken didn't make a sound.
"Just like a kid, eh?"
"How's that?"
"Clever as he can be when dere's nobody dere but you. Clams if you want him to show off." Maybe No-Neck was not as dense as he let on.
"You got it. Most of the time you got to hold him under water to shut him up. Got a mouth like a dock walloper. Gad! This place is a dump." The Godoroth temple hadn't been cleared, the movers had just piled the Shayir stuff inside where it could be unpacked or chunked in the river if things turned out that way. All the rats and roaches and filth were still on the job. No broom had gotten past the threshold any year recently. Definitely a place with character.
No-Neck chuckled. "Way I hear, da Godoroth got only one worshipper left, some old goof on the Hill wit' so much juice he's kept dem on way past dere time already. Say he was around when dey built dis burg. Been in a wheelchair more dan tirty years."
"And the gods won't sully their fingers cleaning up around here."
"You got it. Won't even run a message to dis dink when I want to offer to take care of da place for a reasonable retainer."
"Sounds like they're their own worst enemies." I put the Goddamn Parrot back on my shoulder. All that vulture was going to do was breathe.
"You just said a mout'ful. I been working da Dream Quarter tweny-eight years. You tink people fool demselves, you hang out down here, see what da gods do."
"You actually see them?"
He gave me a funny look. "You don't know much about how tings work here, do you?"
"No. I'm perfectly happy to let the gods ignore me, same as I ignore them."
"You cain't see dem. Not unless'n dey done gone to a lot of trouble to touch you, or you been working here a long time, like me. Den you maybe see shadows and glimmers or hear whispers or get chills and the willies. We could have a whole gang of dem standing around here right now... Well, way I hear, dey wouldn't actually be standing. Shapes like dem little idol tings, dat's what dey might do if dey decided to come out and be visible a while."
I picked up a statue that had to be Magodor. Maggie was not a pretty girl. Her idol had more snakes, more fangs, more arms and claws than she had shown me. "How would you like this for a girlfriend?"
"Way da myts go, I wouldn't get dat close. Dat one's like a spider. Any mortals what do survive her, dey say she ruins for any mortal woman."
I examined one statuette after another. The ugly guys were even uglier, too. "Fun-looking bunch."
"Dem idols don't do dem justice, what da myts say."
"Bad?"
"Very. But dis one, she's da one I dream about. Call her Star."
"I've heard about her. I know what you mean. What about the boss couple? Imar and Imara? Big and dumb is my impression."
"Imar is your old-time always-pissed-off kind of god, real pain in da ass, loves da smell of burnt flesh, which is maybe why da Godorot' don't got dat many worshippers anymore."
"How about the Shayir? I know nothing about them. Who are they? How many of them are there? They have any really special attributes? Are they different from other gods? These Godoroth, overall, aren't anything special. There are gods or saints like them in most religions."
"Da Shayir ain't dat unusual neither. Well, Torbit the Strayer and Quilraq the Shadow, dey're weird. And Black Mona. But da All-Father god is Lang. He probably hatched out of da same egg as Imar. Dey even look alike."
No-Neck was not shy about digging in the boxes rilled with Shayir relics. I wondered if he had rummaged through them before, supplementing his income. "Here. Here's all da idols." He held up one that did look just like the Imar idol up where the altar was.
"Let me see that." I upended Lang, probably an act of deadly disrespect. Sure enough, there was a dwarfish hallmark on the base, along with a date. That was dwarfish, too, but no mystery. Most scholars use the dwarfish dating system because human dating is so confusing, especially back a few centuries when every petty prince and tyrant insisted on setting dates based on his own birth or ascension.
I handed Lang back, went to the altar. The dust was thick. I sneezed, grabbed Imar, treated him with the same lack of respect that I had shown Lang. "Well. What do you know." Imar had the same hallmark and some of the same mold markings, though an earlier date. I could see the dwarves snickering. Stupid humans. Maybe there were thirty gods in the Dream Quarter who all looked exactly alike.
I wished I knew a good theologian. He could tell me how much a god's idol influenced his shape and attributes. Be funny if the gods headed downhill were on the skids because some mass-market idols of dwarfish manufacture didn't distinguish the little quirks that made an Imar an entirely different menace from a Lang.
"Can you read?" I gave a thousand to one in my mind.
"Never had da time to learn." I win. "Even when I was down to da Cantard and dey was trying to teach guys, just to keep dem out of trouble in da waiting time, I never got da tim
e. How come you ask?"
"These idols came out of the same workshop. Out of the same mold. If you could read I'd ask you to look through the records, maybe find me something there."
No-Neck snickered. "You gonna tip me a reasonable tip for helping you out, Garrett?"
"Yeah. After I finish looking through this Shayir stuff." The Shayir were rich compared to the Godoroth. And even homelier, if their idols were accurate.
"You give me a good tip, you come on over to Stuggie Martin's, we can toss back a couple. I'll tell you how silly dis all gets around here sometimes."
"Sounds like a winner. If Stuggie Martin can draw a decent pint of dark."
"Top o' da line. Weider's."
Wouldn't you know?
17
After a few mugs, No-Neck and I had become friends for life. I told stories about my more outrageous cases. He told tales about his war days. I told stories about mine. Now that their hell is far enough away, I find that there are some memories worth saving. No-Neck told stories from his years in the Dream Quarter, and we giggled and laughed till the proprietor asked us to keep it down or do a stand-up so the whole place could enjoy our good humor. Sourpuss. Surprise! His name wasn't Stuggie Martin. The real Stuggie Martin did own the place once upon a time, but nobody living remembered him. It was easier and cheaper to stay Stuggie Martin's than it was to get a new sign.
All that fun and the Goddamn Parrot never horned in once. It was unnatural. I was beginning to wonder. Everybody in Stuggie Martin's thought he was some kind of half-alive affectation till I got him his own mug.
I was a little dizzy and it was getting shadowy outside when I told No-Neck, "Man, I got to get going. My partner will be having fits. Da way dis ting scopes out, I can't afford time to have a good time." It was time to get away. I was starting to talk like him.
The Goddamn Parrot was on the table, working on his beer, showing more signs of life than he had for hours. The bird was partial to the Weider Dark, too, which is all I can say positive about that animate feather duster.
What had the Dead Man done? That devil bird talked in his sleep.
Something was going on, I didn't have any idea what, and so what else was news?
An attraction that made Stuggie Martin's a popular and upscale neighborhood hangout was an actual real glass window that let its patrons see the street outside. The window had lattices of ironwork protecting it inside and out, of course, and those didn't enhance the view, but you could watch the world go by. The name of the street out there was regional, after a province, typical of that part of town. I wouldn't remember it or be able to find it again, but that didn't matter. What did matter was that when I glanced out the window into the provincial street, amidst evening's shadows and oddly golden light, I spied that damned redhead whose twitching tail had lured me into this mess in the first place. She had taken station in a shadow across the way. The light didn't play fair. She stood out like a troll at a fairy dance contest.
I beckoned Stuggie's current successor, who had proven a fair keeper of the holy elixir, if short on good humor. "You got a back way out of here?"
He glanced at No-Neck, who put his seal of approval on me with a nod. "Sure. The back door." Will wonders never cease?
I sucked down my beer, planted the Goddamn Parrot on my shoulder, said good-bye to No-Neck, scarfed the rest of the bird's beer and headed out. My navigation was unstable but under control. I looked forward to getting home and taking a nine-hour nap. I was a little less than fully alert. For some reason I had become preoccupied with significant persons not of the male persuasion. That can be the downside of a few good mugs. You start thinking about serious stuff and don't pay enough attention to what is happening around you.
I slid along the alley feeling totally cunning. If anybody was after me they would be watching the front door. Autumnal light illuminated the walls of the alley. Shadows played. I didn't pay much mind. It was late in the day.
I slipped around a corner, said "Awk!" at the same time as the Goddamn Parrot, pranced to one side and started running.
A guy had been waiting for me. He looked more human than troll or giant, but he was twelve feet tall and carried an axe with a handle as long as me. It had a bizarre double head, big curved blades, some kind of runes worked into the metal, a spike on the end of the handle. The handle itself looked like ebony or ironwood also deeply worked with runes. Some were inlaid with paint or metal. The guy had a wild long red beard and, probably, equally wild hair, but his head and the top half of his face were hidden inside an iron helmet that Dean could have used for an oven. He must have ridden in on a dragon or a big blue cow.
Maybe he didn't want me annoying his sister, following her around.
His clothes were not the height of fashion. Oh, maybe a thousand years ago, when people lived in caves and the badly-cured-hides look and smell was in. But not today, brother.
I had a hunch he was what I had smelled on my way down to the Dream Quarter.
The Goddamn Parrot came to life now. He flapped away. He squawked something outrageous at the big thing, distracting him for the moment I needed to get my rubber legs pumping. I banged into somebody. "What's the matter with you, buddy?" I was lucky. He was just some guy headed home from work, who hadn't had a bad day and was not in a belligerent mood.
"Sorry." I glanced back. The big character was slapping at the Goddamn Parrot like the bird was some annoying insect and his axe was a flyswatter. I probably couldn't have lifted the damned thing. He got a fix on me and started getting all that beef organized to head in my direction.
"Maybe keep an eye out where you're going." The working stiff headed right for the monster man, obviously not seeing a thing.
"Oh my," I told me. "I guess I just met one of the Shayir." I kept on moving as fast as wobble legs would allow.
Shadows and golden light ran with me. I suspected that meant something that might not be good.
A woman stepped into my path, possibly another version of the redhead I had tracked when the world was simple and gods were just bad practical jokes on the credulous. I faked left, got her off balance, and cut right. The Goddamn Parrot ripped past, flapping all out and cussing his fool head off. I would've cussed myself but needed to conserve my wind. I juked around a startled dwarf peddler and his cart full of knives, hurdled a water trough, zigged around an extremely short, fat character who might have been the world's only bald and morbidly obese dwarf, banged into an alley, and did quick and wonderful things with my piece of rope. I vanished.
I tried to hold down the racket I made huffing and puffing as I worked my sack of invisibility back into the street and kept on moving.
The Goddamn Parrot screamed past again, not seeing me. Right behind him was the world's biggest owl. A shadow flickered past. I looked up. Another owlish overachiever cruised at a higher altitude, watching. Neither owl was real maneuverable. The Goddamn Parrot cut a tight turn. The owl behind him didn't make it. It banged into the side of a building, fell, looked foggy for a moment, like it was having trouble deciding what it wanted to be. The owl overhead took up the chase. It kept up easily on the straightaways.
Screeching like a sailor just awakening to find that last night's sweet luck not only had vanished with his whole fortune but had left him a nasty rash as a memento, T. G. headed for home, abandoning me to my fate again.
A gang gathered. The big character with the axe rumbled like a pissed-off volcano. The redhead stood by herself in some shadows and looked pretty. The fat bald dwarf guy looked puzzled. The owl that had hit the wall wobbled through the air, alighted, fuzzily changed into a perky lovely who looked about seventeen and wore nothing but thin lavender gauze. Golden light and shadow coalesced to become a guy about seven feet tall who was naked to the waist and from the waist down was mostly shaggy brown fur and goatlike legs that ended in hooves. He and the reformed owl must have been in love. They couldn't keep their hands off one another.
Nobody else could see them, but nobody w
alked through them either. Not that there was much traffic anyway. It seemed some message had gone out at an unconscious level and most humans were staying away.
The guy with the weird legs pointed to where I had been when I slipped into my invisibility sack. I couldn't hear what he said, but his gestures gave me the gist.
He had seen me disappear. They all understood my limitations, obviously. They spread out and started feeling around for me. All but the young number. She turned into an owl and flew away, not in the direction the Goddamn Parrot had gone. My impression was that she was going after reinforcements.
I couldn't outrun them without becoming visible again, where I couldn't outrun them anyway. So I slid into the damp under a watering trough and got uncomfortable. I would try to wait them out.
They were stubborn. I guess you become patient when you are immortal. They knew I wasn't moving fast or going far. Soon enough, too, I began to suspect they were only interested in keeping me contained while they waited.
That didn't boost my confidence.
An owl arrived. She misted down and became another tasty delicacy wearing not much of anything. This was not the same sweetmeat as before. This one wore a different shade of purple.
The blind guys on the street were missing one hell of a show.
The faun guy—who actually bore only a passing resemblance to the faun tribesmen of the Arabrab Forests—seemed to bear no prejudice against this owl girl, nor she toward him. They engaged in a little heavy petting the others apparently failed to notice.
I began to study the lay of the land.
I wondered if the Goddamn Parrot had gotten away.
18
Soon I began to suspect that I had outwitted myself. I should have covered what ground I could. The Shayir lacked no confidence in the help that was coming.
I eased out of hiding, checked myself. Good. Mud had not clung to whatever surrounded me. I studied the Shayir. They had stopped poking and chattering, were looking out of the corners of their eyes or squinting like that might help them see me better. I guess they could sense that I was moving.