by Glen Cook
And still nothing plopped out of the night or boiled forth from the sewers while I was still in a part of town where they have those.
27
I was bone-tired. I wasn't smart, but I was lucky. It was a quiet night. Everybody with a taste for trouble had gone to the riots. My own brush with those, I learned later, was little more than a glance off the fringes of a minor skirmish far from the center of conflict, where matters grew serious. The push and shove and shouting escalated into massacres when real weapons came out. Nonhuman shops got plundered by the hundred. Refugees and squatters got tormented and beaten too often to number.
The scary thing was, the men responsible were out of control now but were all trained soldiers and combat veterans. If they reclaimed military discipline and organization, TunFaire could witness some real bloodshed.
I wondered what Relway and the secret police were doing to stem the tide. Maybe nothing. Serious bloodshed might serve Relway's personal agenda.
Bad as I wanted to get home to my bed, I entered my neighborhood with care. The temptation to make myself invisible was almost overpowering. Instead, I took my mind back in time, again became the company wreck. "Wreck" was what the regular grunts called us recon types when we were stuck with an infantry outfit. Wrecks got lots of training in sneakery and the mental skills important to the recon mission. I retained the physical skills, but getting to that place in my mind where there was no uncertainty, no nervousness, no worry, no lack of self-discipline, eluded me. That was something you had to work on every day. I had been slacking for years. I felt all the things your master wreck is supposed to set aside.
But I was quiet. I was one with night and shadow, never mind that big moon up there. I was fluidity itself, illusion flowing over the faces of walls in silence of stone. I passed sober but sleeping ratmen and they stirred not a whisker as I ghosted through the alleyways they called home.
I jumped about nine feet high when a sudden weight plopped onto my shoulder, grabbed hold like the cold, clawed hand of something risen from the grave. Every damned time I start telling me how great I am doing.
I returned to earth without screaming, having realized that the clawed hand was two bird feet. Attached to those feet was the ugliest duckling that ever lived. This one couldn't even swim or honk like a swan.
It said, "Do not approach the house yet. There are watchers. They must be diverted. Do not move at all until I give you the word." The voice did belong to the Goddamn Parrot, but there was only one horrible possible source for its dialogue.
I froze, the sheer horror, the terrible implications, leaving me completely blind to the fact that my venture northward, which had cost me such pain coming back south, had not broken the stakeout around my place. "No!" I whined, envisioning a future wherein there was no escape, no safe place. "Tell me it isn't so." He would be able to nag me anywhere.
"Awk! Garrett?"
"I understand and obey, O babbling feather duster." He was doomed. He had to go. If he could be used to follow me around carping, his fate was sealed.
It was him or me or the nightmare. Him or me. Heh heh. Accidents happen, Morley. Terrible accidents. Every day.
"Garrett! Please respond."
I was so involved in scoping out Mr. Big's short future that I had forgotten to keep my eyes and ears open. But luck looked the other way. No evil happened. "I'm right here. Right under this stinking vulture."
"Do not talk that way. The creature could have feelings, too. Hurry home. This diversion will not last long."
"On my way, Old Bones." I could sell him into slavery. Plenty of big-time wizards wouldn't mind having a dead Loghyr on staff. Well, a tame one anyway. Maybe I could give him away. Anybody wanted him, they could just come by and haul him off. I was not going to endure having him looking over my shoulder and criticizing me all over town.
28
I sensed the Dead Man's presence long before the house came in sight. He was wide awake and totally involved, which was a little disconcerting.
"Hurry!" the bird muttered. "Hurry!" Hurry! echoed inside my head.
I ran, still horrified by the possibility that there might be no escape from the Dead Man ever again.
My block of Macunado was filled with smoke. A few neighbors were out asking the night what the hell had happened. Seemed a waste if this was the Dead Man's doing. Gods, even of No-Neck's petty pewter stripe, were without doubt capable of seeing through smoke screens both physical and metaphorical. But I soon discovered that this smoke was full of specters flittering hither and yon, like the ghosts of childhood nightmares conjured for but an hour.
I scrambled up my front steps. My front door popped open just as a bumblebee hum grew in the darkness. I dived through. It popped shut behind me, hopefully before that banger-smoking runt caught a glimpse. For once Dean was on the job.
He was pale, frightened. I said, "Maybe you should have stayed another couple of days. You would've missed all this fun."
He gulped and nodded, but said, "I will have your supper ready in a few minutes. Meantime, Himself insists on seeing you."
Now didn't that dovetail sweetly with my own master plan?
I let myself into Himself's room, rehearsing some choice remarks. "We're into some really deep shit, Old Bones, and it isn't going to be good enough to just tread water."
"I am aware of the peril... "
"Can it with the talking bird, will you? Let's do it the way we always have. No! Wait. Stay awake... "
Sarcasm is inappropriate, Garrett. We will proceed as you wish.
"I figure you can see how my day went with one glance at the inside of my head. I hope yours was better."
Indeed. I had a very instructional evening with your friend Linda Lee, once she gained the upper hand on her prejudices. That child has potential, Garrett. I approve.
Uh-oh. He never approves of any woman. "Don't let her image fool you, either. She knows exactly what to do with all that potential."
I fail to see any humor in your insinuation, Garrett. Linda Lee is that rarest of all mythical beings, a woman of reason and...
I burst out laughing. "I don't believe it. She got to you." I chuckled some more, telling me I would have to look out for my librarian. If she could turn the Dead Man's head she was dangerous. "Of course you don't see any humor. You don't have a sense of humor. Come on. What's the word on these gods? They the real thing? How do I get out from under?"
The Word is Trouble. In your vernacular, trouble in a big way. From the sheer scope of events around you we have to conclude that this is not an elaborate confidence game.
"No shit."
He failed to catch my sarcasm this time. Or he ignored it, which he will do.
Not even a government would go to the expense and trouble of staging something this difficult to manage.
"You're kidding. Imagine that. No government willing to fool me?"
Not in this pinpoint fashion. The expense anti-militates.
"Not to mention that I'm completely unimportant in the mortal scheme. A little nil."
Not to mention that no one on this earth has to work that hard to fool you. Some long legs, a bit of jiggle, some flouncing long hair, perhaps red for extra effect...
Sigh. "Great, Chuckles. We're really getting somewhere here, aren't we? We are really getting diddled by gods?"
They believe they are gods. And almost certainly they are within the liberal definitions employed by your primitive ancestors.
"All right. Whatever, they're bad. I'm a fly and I see the flyswatter coming. Do I get philosophical and suffer it? Or can I do something?"
There are several somethings available as options. Perhaps the most attractive is to lie low and do nothing at all while the situation runs its course. I would not be repelled by this option were it possible to sustain it. Your world and the Dream Quarter would be no poorer for the loss of these pantheons.
"The trouble is, they don't plan to go quietly into that gentle night."
Not
at all. And since you have been given the opportunity to save them, any disaster is sure to come to roost here swiftly, whether or not they are able to discern your presence.
"They want a key, Chuckles. And I don't have a clue where to look for one. Or what it would look like if I tripped over it. Did Linda Lee help us out there?"
With her invaluable aid—and I cannot overemphasize just how much the child impressed me—I reviewed the available literature both on these pantheons and on those mechanisms used to determine presence, place, and status in the Dream Quarter.
"Wonderful. Does all that wind mean you figured something out?"
Restrain yourself. You are not safe here, nor is time ours to squander.
I rolled my eyes and beat back the urge to head upstairs right now. I was more than ready to get intimate with my bed. "I'm not the one blowing like the wind."
Based upon available information, supplemented by reason, I have concluded—albeit with a reluctance approaching despair—that you yourself are the anointed key. Additionally, it seems improbable that the interested parties have yet entertained that possibility.
"Say what?" I squeaked.
You are it, Garrett. They do not know yet. That has been your grand piece of luck to this point.
"No shit." If he was right. He couldn't be right. I didn't want him to be right.
They would break my legs so I couldn't run, then clap me in irons and toss me into a cage and rivet it shut, then surround that with magical spells.
I have no doubts whatsoever.
"Shit," I said again. I was going through one of those vocabulary droughts that set in after a really bad shock. "Shit. It's me? I'm the key? How the hell does anybody fit me into a lock?"
You have to begin from the fact that where religion is concerned, as is the case with magic, much of what you deal with is metaphor and symbol. In this instance metaphor and symbol have taken life.
That kind of babble usually sets me off. This time I was too tired and achy to squabble.
Dean brought a tray. I stared at a gigantic lamb chop, vegetables, cherry cobbler fit for the king and a mug of beer big enough to suit one of the divine thugs making my life miserable.
"Is there some metaphorical way to kick symbols in the ass so they leave you alone?"
Doubtful. They are gods—albeit as petty as they get. You are not. In all the histories of all the races of this world there have been only two methods proven efficacious in dealing with the gods. You must appease them or you must befuddle them.
"There you go stating the obvious again. Let's back it up some. What makes me the key? How and when did I get hung with it?"
I cannot offer an informed answer. I have a theory, but it is too tenuous and unsettling at this point.
"Bullshit." My buddy, my pal, who don't like getting caught being wrong so won't say anything till he is certain he is going to be right. "I'm not buying any of this premature... "
Though time is indeed precious, your best option now is to rest. It should be possible to maintain the illusion of your absence for a time. Sleep. And, henceforth, please do not resort to any of the options offered by the cord given you by that Magodor creature.
"I done figured that one out for myself, Smiley."
I suppose you have, at that. Sleep, Garrett.
My bed felt like a little slice of heaven, with whipped cream on top.
29
It was a night too short. Some thief of time ripped off the four best hours. Cruel wakeup arrived with a crueler sunup. Somehow, my curtains stood open. Sunbeams flailed around like whips in the hands of morons. I faced away, tried to den up like a groundhog under the covers, but there was no escape. There is no enemy so relentless as the sun.
I know I shut my door before I collapsed into bed. It stood open now, perhaps betraying the first feather-stroke of Dean's vengeance campaign. My struggle against a return to the realm of the waking suffered savage reverses at the beak of the Goddamn Parrot, who was perched atop the open door and deft enough of wing to evade a flying shoe traveling at high speed.
This was the last straw. He was gone.
I was not likely to fail to remember who was operating him, either. The very bone-lazy bonehead who had helped so little with my recent cases, the deadbeat who would not wake up if you set a fire under his chair.
To hell with him. I packed my blanket tight around my ears.
Stubbornness gained me nothing. I stayed in bed, all right, but didn't get any more sleep. I just lay there wishing. While the Goddamn Parrot preached sermons.
"Bird, your life expectancy is minutes. You don't shut up you're going to be creamed chipped squab on toast." Dean would put together a championship gourmet experiment.
The bird got the message. His inclination toward self-preservation overrode the Dead Man's low, practical joke kind of humor. For the moment. That was one stupid bird.
All right. I could tuck that triumph in my pocket. So how come I couldn't get back to sleep? How come some sadistically self-abusive part of me kept insisting it was time to get up and get at it?
"Get at what?" I muttered. I dropped my feet into the same abyss as yesterday. "There ain't nothing, but nothing, out there that can't get through the day without me."
Good morning, Garrett. Please exercise emotional caution today. The house is being observed. I believe I have your presence adequately masked. To maintain the illusion I must have you remain placid. Please refrain from these unproductive outbursts.
"Then don't provoke me," I grumbled. I staggered around and fell into some clothes I found lying around, mostly what I had shucked in the middle of the night. They were not completely ripe. They would do.
I took my life in my hands, peeked out my window. "Damn!"
Garrett! Calmly, please.
"It's bright out there." Whatever happened to all those gloomy, overcast days we'd been having? The world seemed to be getting warmer.
Stay away from the window. Someone might see the curtain move and reason that you are here after all—particularly since the movement came at your window.
It was going to be one of those days, was it? Nags punctuated by nagging? I reconsidered my bed. It had been so nice in there, so toasty warm. My dreams had been of a paradise where the motives of all the beautiful women were blatant and straightforward and the "me key, you lock" symbolism was direct and obvious. There were beer taps everywhere, and you would gain five pounds a day on the food if you ate it in the waking world.
By jingo June, as Granny used to say—I did hear her say that once—I ought to get my buddies together so we could cook us up our own religion. Most of them believed in booze and bimbos, and some enlightened religions already considered that sort of stuff important enough to rate its own underling gods and goddesses. Star was one example. Maybe we could get Star to jump the Godoroth ship by offering her a better contract.
A diffuse wave of disgust emanated from downstairs. "You don't like the way I think, quit poking around inside my head."
I was not seeking adolescent fantasization. I was trying to reexamine your experiences of yesterday.
"You were playing voyeur because you can't think that stuff up for yourself. The best you can come up with is bug parades and goofball political theories."
I cannot deny what is self-evident. I am a creature of intelligence and intellect, disinclined toward obsession with pleasures of the flesh.
"You can't deny what is self-evident, which is that you couldn't do anything about it if you wanted, so you just sit there making sour remarks about those of us who still have a little fire in our blood."
While we amused ourselves, I negotiated the stairway, an epic adventure any morning early. I trudged into the kitchen and drew a mug of tea from the pot. Dean was at the stove. He offered me a look of exasperation, like I had ruined his whole day by not staying in bed so he could experience the enjoyment of rousting me out. I tapped every reservoir of contrariness within me, put on my brightest Charlie Sunshine face
, chirped, "Good morning, Dean. Did you sleep well?"
He glowered a deep black glower, sure I was putting him on. "Breakfast will be a while yet."
I poured myself a refill. "Take your time. Me and the big guy got schemes to scheme and cons to crack." I was sure that, immortal players or not, there were charades going on in this temple squabble. Overall, the Shayir probably were more straight with me, and one sex of them sure was friendly, but I was sure we didn't have the full map in front of us yet. "Dean?"
"Sir?"
"Did the wedding go well? Was the trip worth it?" I could not recall having asked before,
"It all went quite well. Your gift was received with considerable pleasure. Rebecca expressed amazement that you even remembered her, let alone thought so well of her."
"There was a time when neither one of you let me forget for a minute. That gift was a sigh of relief." Back then Dean's whole mission in life, it seemed, was to get me married to one of his numerous nieces.
A hint of a smirk pranced around the corners of the old boy's mouth. He said, "It was an interesting journey. We even fell afoul of highwaymen on the return leg, gentlemen so inept they didn't know what to do when they found out that everyone aboard the coach was stone-broke. I enjoyed myself a great deal, but it's good to be back home."
"Yeah. No place like." Especially for me. "Sounds like somebody pounding on the door."
Garrett. Please step into your office and close the door.
"Huh?"
Our visitors are Mr. Tharpe, Miss Winger, and an associate of Mr. Dotes' known as Agonistes. They will leave shortly. I should like them to depart convinced that you are not on these premises.
That sounded like a reasonable idea, but who would want to admit it to Himself?