by Glen Cook
I have not yet given the matter much consideration. However, and despite any pretense to the contrary, this one understands spoken Karentine perfectly. They have a sorcery which allows them to learn very quickly.
Meaning she was tracking my part of the conversation.
Exactly.
"Ouch. But is there any solid reason for us to hide?"
Evas stood motionless, regarding me with those huge, unblinking eyes, possibly trying to see inside me, to the place where I was listening to the Dead Man. I wondered if she was having any success. I conjured a vivid erotic vision of the two of us rather energetically being boys and girls together. The Dead Man made his disgust known immediately. The silver elf did not, though by happenstance there was a huge crash in the kitchen.
I did get a somewhat puzzled look from Singe, which confirmed my suspicion that she might be slightly sensitive herself.
Very slightly. For which be grateful. Had she viewed that image we might be dealing with hysteria all over again.
"You know, I still ache all over anytime I sit still for very long. I don't want to be a detective anymore today. And when I get up tomorrow I just want to be an accountant trying to figure out how to make sure we get paid for all of this. Can they read and write?"
I do not know. And now I can no longer see inside Evas' head without hammering my way in. For some reason she has begun to suspect that someone here might be able to read her mind. You would not have any notion why she might suspect that, would you?
I shrugged. It didn't seem likely, did it?
I'm not usually much concerned about money—as long as I've got some. I was growing concerned because of this mess, though. We were spending and spending and spending to hire help and buy food and there seemed to be an ever smaller likelihood of us managing any return on investment. Kip was back home with his family. The silver elves seemed to have lost interest in him. After the country confrontation, they all knew that he couldn't finger Lastyr and Noodiss.
But Old Bones was having him one hell of a good time, I could tell. This thing was the most fun he'd had in years. It was something new. These two weird women, Evas and Fasfir, were, to him, as exciting and alluring as was my friend Katie to me.
I said, "This's the least violent, least traditional thing we've ever been into. I'm not comfortable with it at all. The stakes are trivial and these silver elves are too alien for me to find very interesting."
Perhaps you will feel differently in the morning. Try considering the stakes from a viewpoint not your own. I will be doing that myself now that I have the mind time free. One obvious avenue of exploration is the possible dangers the Lords of the Hill fear.
"Those old paranoids are only scared because they think the whole world is infested with people as cruel and wicked and mean-spirited as they are."
True. But that does not render them automatically wrong in every instance. They can be afraid in a huge way because it is possible for them to have huge enemies to make life terrible, not just for them but for us all. Just one of these silver elves needs to be wicked and willing to use their weird but powerful sorcery against us.
He was right about that. Those people controlled some very strange powers.
He was right about me feeling differently in the morning, too—for reasons entirely unrelated to any remotely within his consideration at the time.
64
I wakened suddenly, thinking those pixies had to go. But they were quiet. Instead, there was a weak light burning and I wasn't alone in my bed. When I turned to tell Singe, yet again, that this couldn't happen, a spidery gray finger fell upon my lips. Another spidery finger touched a large eye, then tapped my temple.
Oh, boy. What was this? The silver elf woman, Evas, knelt on the edge of my bed. She'd seen that naughty image after all. And she'd brought a sheaf of papers with her. I recognized them. They'd all been in my office, on my desk, before I'd come upstairs.
Evas could read and write Karentine. And she'd been a busy little scribbler.
She placed the papers in my hands. The top sheet said, simply, Teach me.
She removed that raggedy, short shirt. And again placed a finger on my lips when I started to tell her to go away.
That petite form definitely did have its appeal, suddenly. I couldn't resist wondering about its possibilities.
Later I would wonder if there was any chance my thoughts had been guided from outside.
Evas moved the top sheet of paper to the bottom of the stack.
Followed a story of an extremely ancient people who, ages ago, had decided to set aside the insidious and constant distortions of the intellect that are caused by the stormy demands of sexual reproduction.
I could relate to that. Some would claim that I'm intellectually distorted most of the time. I confess freely that I'd be much more respectable and much less emotionally vagrant if the gods hadn't seen fit to bless and curse the rest of us with women.
Evas declared herself a despicable throwback who suffered wicked urges and curiosities all the time. She'd fought those successfully until now only because she'd always been surrounded by people who wouldn't let her get into situations where she might embarrass herself.
Here, tonight, she had an opportunity to pursue the curiosities that were driving her mad. And her people would never be the wiser.
Chances were excellent that such an opportunity would never come to her again.
She knew the mechanics. She'd taken advantage of her ability to move around unseen to indulge her curiosity intellectually. They all had. She was the only one who hadn't been repelled.
Back to sheet one and Teach me.
Hers was a whole new, entirely intellectual approach to the art of seduction. Backed up by what my rude senses could gather of her mental state. Evas wasn't kidding. And in that weak light she looked far more exotic and desirable than weird.
I had fallen into every red-blooded boy's favorite daydream.
At some point Evas took time out to use a thin fingertip to trace letters on my skin to pass me the message, "I will not break." She wanted me to know that she wasn't nearly as fragile as she looked.
65
"Good morning, Sunshine," Dean told me, nudging me to let me know he'd brought my tea. I was half-asleep at the breakfast table, unable to stop grinning.
I grunted.
"Odd. You're smiling. And you got to bed at a reasonable hour for once. But you're as crabby as a mountain boozelt."
"Them damned pixies. They never shut up. All night long."
He didn't challenge me. That could only mean that he didn't know any better.
Singe appeared, obviously having been up since the crack of dawn. She was chipper, though possibly more conspiratorial than ever. She was pleasant to me. Nor was I getting any grief from the Dead Man.
When Evas turned up she was coolly indifferent to everything but some tea heavily sweetened with honey. She was exactly as she had been yesterday except, possibly, for projecting a somewhat more resigned attitude toward her captivity. Her sidekick Fasfir, though equally cool, presented a puzzle. She kept looking at me the way you might regard a twenty-foot python you found coiled atop the kitchen table: repelled, wary, awed, maybe a little intrigued and excited.
Still nothing from the Dead Man.
That must've been one hell of a dream I'd had. Especially since it'd reawakened all my aches and pains and had added a few that were new.
Evas might be willing to let me think it had been all a dream spawned by my wicked imagination but I noted, with some satisfaction, that she moved very carefully and did so mainly when she thought no one was paying attention. Fasfir noticed, though.
So. She knew.
My grin spread a little wider.
"What evil thought just burst into your mind?" Singe demanded. There was an actual teasing edge to her voice.
"Nothing special. Just a warm memory."
Once I finished eating, and began to feel a little more awake, I moved to my office
. I was feeling positive and eager to get things done. But before I could start I had to go round up a pile of missing paperwork.
During the course of the morning, various people came by the house. Most wanted money. Playmate was effusive with gratitude but didn't bring one copper sceat to defray the costs of my efforts to salvage his madonna's useless infant. I responded to two written requests for clarification or additional information from the good people at the al-Khar. I received a note from Manvil Gilbey telling me that Max Weider wanted in financially. The same messenger brought a sealed note from Max's daughter Alyx, who complained that she was dying of loneliness and that that was all my fault and when was I going to do something about it?
There were other notes in time, including one from Kayne Prose, inscribed for her by a professional letter writer. That was meant to impress me. And it did, a little. Then there was a discreet letter from Uncle Willard Tate, who invited me to the Tate compound for dinner because he'd just enjoyed an intriguing visit from a certain Manvil Gilbey, associated with the Weider brewing empire. The paper on which the letter was written had a light lilac scent. The hand in which it had been inscribed was familiar and almost mocking.
It reminded me which redheaded, green-eyed beauty managed the Tate correspondence and accounts.
I'd have to gird my mental and emotional loins for that visit. Tinnie was sure to play me like a cheap kazoo if I was bold enough to venture onto her home ground.
The afternoon saw the arrival of a formal, engraved invitation to participate in the celebration of Chodo Contague's sixtieth birthday party, two weeks down the road. And a "Just wanted to say hi" note from solicitor Harvester Temisk, implying that he'd really like to visit before Chodo's birthday celebration.
Dean began to grouse about having to answer the door constantly—when he wasn't hard at work pursuing his custom of charming whatever woman happened to be staying in the house. It was he who took Evas far enough along to lure forth a spoken word of gratitude. She didn't pronounce the word right and she had difficulty saying it but she did demonstrate that at least one silver elf besides Casey came equipped with a capacity for speech. Yet one more talent unsuspected by us primitives until she betrayed herself. Possibly she was a throwback in more ways than the one.
Fasfir didn't seem pleased.
I had begun to develop an idea of the personalities of our reluctant guests. Evas was cool and brilliant and collected and always in control. In her own mind. But in real life she'd be her own worst enemy. A sort of foreign Kayne Prose with a mind. With her self-destructive urges skewed at a different angle. Fasfir would be cool and collected and always in control but, like the best officers and sergeants, would be skilled at failing to see those transgressions which did not threaten the world with an immediate descent into chaos and anarchy.
Singe invited herself into my office to preen and gossip. There wasn't a lot to gossip about, though, unless she wanted to discuss the recipes Dean had begun sharing with her.
I asked, "How close are you to your brother?" I didn't think family was important among ratpeople, but had only prejudice and hearsay to go by.
"I do not have a brother. What does this one say?" She had started leafing through my papers.
"Which side?"
With unerring accuracy she had chosen the side which said, Teach me.
I told her.
"What does that mean?"
"I don't know. This isn't a royal style business. I don't have a few million people I can gouge for taxes anytime the urge takes me so I have to make do with whatever bits and pieces of paper come my way. My stuff is on the other side."
I hoped Singe hadn't done any poking around in here. There were almost two dozen identical sheets of paper inside my desk drawer, with both faces still virgin to the pen.
I stuck to my subject. "What do you mean, you don't have a brother? What's John Stretch, then?"
"Oh. Well. We do not see some things the same way you do. Humility belongs to the litter before mine. He would have a different father." Ratpeople follow social and mating customs much closer to those of rodents than they do those of civilized beings such as myself. Chances were excellent that few of Singe's littermates shared the same father.
"Humility?"
Singe responded with one of her rehearsed shrugs.
"So his real name is Pular Humility?"
"No. It is Pound Humility." That's right. The Dead Man did tell me that. "His sire is believed to have been Hurlock Pound. Chances are good. My mother managed to retain some choice and self-control even during the peak of her season. I hope I will have the strength to do the same. Though I am less likely to go into season as long as I remain in exile."
The name Hurlock Pound meant nothing to me. "Never mind. I'm too groggy to keep up with all that. Let's stick with John Stretch. Why did you get upset yesterday when—"
"Because I have spent too much time around you people. I suppose. And because Humility was always good to me when I was little."
"But now he wants to use you as a counter in his effort to make himself king of the ratmen."
"Just do not go hunting him. All right? That way I cannot blame myself for whatever he gets himself into."
"I guess. Whatever." The child was strange. I was convinced that she didn't know what she wanted most of the time. Unlike her doomed brother, she didn't know where she wanted to go.
Then again, I'm sometimes wrong.
"I have been wondering, Garrett. Do you think it would be possible for me to learn to read and write?"
So that was where she'd been going when she'd chosen that sheet of paper. I gave it some thought because, honestly, "I've never thought about it. That's probably because of the prejudices all us humans are brought up with. Do you know any ratpeople who can read or write?"
"No. Reliance is the only one I know who needs to. So he has a couple of slaves to keep his books and write his letters. The same goes for the other ratman gangs."
I kept a straight face. "Have you ever heard of anyone who tried to learn?"
"I've met some who wanted to learn. Wanted to try to learn. But who would teach them?"
Who indeed? Nobody in TunFaire, of whatever race, wanted ratpeople getting notions, taking on airs, thinking above their station.
"All right. Karentine is the main language in TunFaire so it's what you'll know best." I recovered the sheet carrying the request, Teach me. Ironic. "Do you know any of these letters by name?"
She didn't then but half an hour later she knew them all and had a solid grasp on the concept of how characters and groups of characters represent the sounds that make up spoken words. That was because she'd paid attention most of her life. To everything going on around her.
I sorted out every paper I had that had anything on it in Evas' handwriting—which was, actually, laborious, tiny printing—and got that all put away. "We humans might ought to have you strangled right now, Singe. I swear, you're going to take over the world in a few more years."
For once she grasped the compliment. She was learning in every direction.
I hoped she was as good in her heart as she seemed. Otherwise, I'd be helping to create a monster.
66
I did hear the pixies get excited but missed the knock on the door. I'd fallen deep into contemplation of Eleanor, who seemed to be contemplating me right back. She didn't approve of the way I'd been running my life lately. When Eleanor disapproves I know it's time to do some serious reassessment. I thought I had a handle on it, too.
Dean stuck his head into the office. "There're some very nervous ratmen on the stoop."
John Stretch.
"John Stretch?"
"One gave me that name."
"I'm on my way."
Bring them to my room.
I swung the door open. "Get in here, guys. They're watching the place most of the time these days. Bic, bitty buddy. How're you doing? Not too good, I guess. And Casey," as a second Bic shuffled forward. "I know that must be you
in that disguise. Screwed up, eh? Damn, John Stretch, you got them both. I didn't think you could do it." I made sure the door was solidly locked, just to retard any attempt at a hurried exit. "Go into the room behind the door on the right, please. Dean! These guys look like they're starved. Singe! Where are you? We've got company. Give Dean a hand."
In my heart I was wondering if, perhaps, Singe wasn't the only genius pup produced by her mother. And this other pup did want to be in charge.
John Stretch and his friends didn't know what to make of the Dead Man. It's hard to do, him sitting there like an idol that gives off just a hint of bad aroma. Chances were excellent that they'd never run into a Loghyr before. It could be, in fact, that they'd never heard of the Loghyr race.
They didn't know what to make of Fasfir when she invited herself in, either. She drew plenty of attention from Casey, though. Casey seemed amazed to find her alive and more amazed to find her clad in ragged native garb. But he kept his opinions to himself. The Dead Man assured me that Casey had closed his mind with a determination that was stunning. For the time being he was locked up tighter than Fasfir was.
He must suspect something.
Either that or he was a natural-born paranoid.
I took my seat. "Damn again, John Stretch. How in the world did you manage to round up these two?"
Interesting. He has a talent of his own. He can use his normal rat cousins to scout and spy for him, much as I employ Mr. Big. Though his reach is very much shorter than mine.
"It couldn't be any other way." I continued, "You put me in a nasty position, John Stretch. My reputation for keeping my word is my most important asset."
Last time we met, I thought John Stretch must be dim. He wasn't. Not even a little. He understood that I wanted to weasel out. "You agreed to a deal. We have fulfilled our undertaking." His Karentine remained hard to follow but was adequately understandable. His courage was beyond question. Ratmen don't talk back to humans, let alone imply threats.
"The problem is, long before I made the deal with you I swore a solemn oath to Singe that I wouldn't let any of you people drag her away from here."