by Glen Cook
The buzz changed pitch. I glanced back but kept my feet moving. The little guy doing the floating and cussing slapped a little arrow across his little bow and plinked the old man in the back of his meat-chopping hand. “Get moving, ya drooling moron!” he growled at me. “If you’d hauled your ass from the start they’d never have seen me.”
“I wouldn’t have missed you.”
Sometimes it’s wonderful to be young and dumb. A stunt like this would not have bothered me ten years ago.
About twenty feet from the window a bit of rope hung over the edge of the roof, which at that point descended to within eight feet of our footing. However, the roof did overhang us by several feet. Young and dumb, my new friend just leaped, grabbed the rope, clambered right up, skirt flying. Although he was busy cursing his wound, the old man caught that action. His eyes bugged more than mine did.
As the girl’s feet vanished, the flying critter soared up after her with the same sort of ponderous grace you see in large flying insects, the sort of stately defiance of gravity of a thing that don’t look like it ought to get off the ground at all. He filed various verbal complaints as he went. What a team the girl and I would make, her with her chattering whatisit and me with the Goddamn Parrot.
I shut my eyes, took a deep breath, considered the racket the old man was raising now, opened my eyes, offered the old boy a salute, took the plunge.
That sort of thing was all very well when I was nineteen and only one of a bunch of lunatics who tried to outdo one another in the face of an implacable enemy and almost certain premature death, but I was thirty now. I had a reasonably ordered and comfortable life. Well, sort of. Why the hell couldn’t I remember the moments like this when Old Man Weider made one of his pitches aimed at getting me to work the brewery full time?
I grabbed the rope, found arm strength I had feared was not there anymore, scrambled toward the roof. No longer did I possess the liquid grace of youth, but I did manage to get the job done.
“Can ya believe it, toots? The wuss actually dragged his lead ass up here.”
“Hurry!” The girl beckoned from the top of a slope of slate. “The alarm is spreading.”
Wouldn’t you know. I hurried. After bellying up twenty feet of steep and treacherously dew-slick slate, I dragged myself onto the flat part of the roof, which was large enough for a battalion’s drill ground. You could farm there if you wanted to haul the soil up first. I got to my feet. The girl beckoned anxiously. Beckoning had to be her top skill. I got the notion this was going slower than she’d planned.
The flying baby with the hallucinogenic stogie watched sourly from the back of a horse big enough to haul ogre knights around. The little guy had wings sprouting out of his shoulder blades. They looked just about big enough to lug a pigeon around. I guess he had to work hard when he flew.
There were two horses. “Oh no,” I said. “No. I’ve done all the riding I want for today.” Me and horses never get along. My ribs informed me that Black Mona’s mount had made every effort to ensure that my immediate future was one filled with misery. And that thing was only related to horses. Did I really want to escape badly enough to put myself at the mercy of these monsters?
“Look at this clown, babe. He don’t...”
“Please stop horsing around, Mr. Garrett.” The girl was exasperated.
“You don’t understand. They have you fooled.”
The house shuddered underfoot. Somebody big had begun to stir downstairs.
“See ya later, Sweet Buns.” The little thing’s wings turned into a blur. He buzzed off into the night.
I started climbing the one horse that didn’t already have a blonde on top. It was a monster the color of old ivory, maybe even big enough to haul a troll into battle. For a while there I thought I would need ropes and pitons to make it to the top.
I completed the long climb. I swung my right leg over, was pleased to discover that the horse and I both had our heads facing the same direction. The extra altitude gave me a fine view of the roof.
The roof?
It occurred to me that I was about make my getaway on horseback from a rooftop. How far could I get? Was I the victim of an all-time practical joke? I do have friends who would consider this kind of situation a real howler.
I didn’t see anybody standing around snickering behind his dirty elven hand.
I didn’t have any friends who would, or for that matter could, spring for the cash a setup like this would cost.
The girl howled like a merry banshee. The child was happy. She kicked her horse in the ribs. It took off down the roof, chasing the baby whatisit. My horse was exactly as treacherous as I expect every equine to be. He took off, chasing his pal, without ever consulting me.
24
Those goddamned horses were stupider than I thought. They decided to race. The girl’s mount had shorter legs but a head start. When mine got up to speed it started to gain. All I could do was howl and hang on as my brave but terminally stupid steed pulled even. The girl grinned at me and waved.
We ran out of roof.
Neither horse blinked. Neither horse slowed down either, though they did angle away from one another at the last second.
The shapeshifting started well before the leap into space, but it was only as we ran out of roof that I noticed it. In scant seconds huge wings burst from my mount’s shoulders. Those broad shoulders narrowed dramatically. The beast’s whole back slimmed down until it was barely wider than a trim woman’s waist. All that bulk turned into wings. Those great wings hammered the air.
I hoped my whimpering wasn’t loud enough to hear.
We climbed toward the moon. The girl’s laughter tumbled back toward the manor like the tinkle of celestial windchimes. Possessed by the confidence of youth, she thought we were safely away. I was too busy not falling off to worry about owls and fluttering shadows and whatnot.
We went up and up till all TunFaire lay sprawled below us, more vast than ever I had imagined. To my right the great bend of the river shone like a silver scimitar in the moonlight. Lights blazed everywhere, for the city never sleeps. It boasts almost as many nocturnal inhabitants as daytime ones. It is several cities coexisting in the same place at the same time. It changes faces with the hours. Only in the hour before dawn is TunFaire ever more than coincidentally quiet.
I buried my hands in horse mane and hung on for dear life. I didn’t pray, though, if that was what they were trying to get me to do. Soon I became engrossed in that remarkable view of the city I call home. When I saw it from up there I didn’t wonder that half the world wanted to come here. From up there you could see only the magnificence. You had to get down on the ground to capture the stench and filth, to see the pain and poverty and cruelty, the irrational hatreds and the equally mad occasional senseless acts of charity. TunFaire was a beautiful woman. Only when you held her close and buried your face in her hair could you see the lice and scabs and fleas.
Not even in my most bizarre dreams had I ever drifted above everything like some great roc of darkness. I boggled while moonshine turned reservoirs into glimmering platters and drainage ditches into runes of silver. The earth seemed to wheel as the animals turned in flight. Amazing! My hands were cramped from holding on so tight, but I knew only the awe.
The girl shrilled, “Isn’t this wild, Mr. Garrett?”
“Absolutely.” I would tell her that Mr. Garrett was my grandfather after I got my feet back onto solid ground.
I looked back the way we had come. Trouble, if it was after us, was not yet close enough to pick out of the night. Trouble was sure to follow, though. That could be the tide of my autobiography. Trouble Follows Me. Though usually it ambushes me. I wondered if Nog was capable of tracing me through the air.
The girl let rip a wild yodel, swung one hand violently overhead. Lilac and violet sparks flew off her fingers. Her mount pointed his nose down. He plunged toward the earth.
Mine followed. “Oh, shit!” The bottom fell out.
&nbs
p; Mine wanted to race again. TunFaire hurtled toward me, getting less enchanting by the second.
My stomach stayed back up there among the stars. Good thing I’d had no supper. We would be racing it to the ground, too.
The winged horses actually descended in a great circle, tilting slightly, moving their wings no more than buzzards on patrol. The streets and lights turned below. Soon I could make out individual structures, then individual people, none of whom looked up. People seldom do, and I take advantage of that fact occasionally, but seeing my world from the back of a horse cruising above the rooftops gave that concept new dimension.
My fright had ebbed. I was thinking again. I was proud of me. I wouldn’t have to change my underwear. I must be getting used to these bizarre adventures.
What were these winged horse things? What was the little flying thug in the diaper? He was around somewhere. I couldn’t see him, but his voice carried altogether too well. The only place I had seen their like was in old paintings of mythical events.
Unicorns, vampires, mammoths, fifty kinds of thunder lizards, werewolves, and countless other creatures often deemed mythical I had seen with my own eyes. Too often they had hammered bruises into my own flesh. But these flying horses and the bitty bowman constituted my first encounter widh a class of critters I thought of as artists’ conventions. Symbols. These guys, griffins, ostriches, cameleopards, cyclops. All of them supposedly as uncommon as lawyers driven only by a need to see justice done.
We dropped lower. The horses glided wingtip to wingtip. The little guy buzzed, but I could not spot him. We seemed to be headed back into the heart of TunFaire, down toward Brookside Park.
I still had not gotten a name out of my demigoddess benefactor, nor did I have a ghost of a notion of her true motive for helping me. She offered up another amazing yodel. I began to fiddle with my amazing cord. We could amaze one another. “Hey, girl! Who are you? You got a name or not?” There was a lot of wind noise in my ears, not to mention the powerful hum of the litde guy’s wings. I couldn’t spot him no matter how hard I looked.
Crystal laughter rang out off to my right. It looked like the horses were thinking about landing. The girl was pulling ahead to go down first. “Call me Cat, Mr. Garrett. Bad Girl Cat.”
“I like bad girls.” I would have said more, but my throat tightened up. We were down so low the peaks of buildings widi pointy roofs were at eye level. My mount started using his wings to slow down, but still structures whipped past at a speed beyond my imagining. I could not believe anyone could travel so fast and still be able to breathe.
My mount reared back and presented the entire undersurface of its wings to the onrushing air. We slowed violently, shuddering, air roaring. The beast’s wings shrank. Its shoulders began to bulk up. Its speed dropped. Then it hit the ground galloping. And there was nothing upon its back. Or so I hoped the casual observer would conclude. The horse had to sense my weight.
I had strained my courage to its limits to get myself inside my sack of invisibility.
Actually, initially I pulled the noose up only to my armpits. I needed my arms free. Once the horse touched down and began slowing its run, it trotted in amongst some trees. It promptly lost two hundred pounds as I grabbed a sturdy branch. Oof! Rip the old arms out by the roots, why not?
I dropped to the ground, pulled the sack of invisibility over my head, moved along before my self-proclaimed rescuers had time to realize that I had disappeared.
Pixies laughed and yelled, “We saw what you did. We saw what you did.” But if you were not listening for them they just sounded like sparrows complaining about having been wakened in the middle of the night.
25
“Mr. Garrett? Where are you? Are you all right? Answer me if you can.”
I could but I didn’t. She could not be sure I hadn’t fallen during our landing. Damn! If I had kept my mouth shut, if I hadn’t asked her her name, she couldn’t have been sure I hadn’t fallen earlier, when she was having too much fun to concentrate.
The bumblebee whir of the runt’s wings came toward me, wordlessly putting death to my maunderings. He knew I hadn’t fallen. He was on patrol now, running a slow search pattern. The little rat couldn’t shut up. And everything he said was less than complimentary toward my favorite working stiff. Me.
To know me is to love me.
I headed for home full speed, encouraged by a racket behind me that suggested a welcoming party might have been waiting. Sounded like lots of folks were in a sudden bad mood, including a nation of pixies untimely rousted from their sleep. Over what sounded like a henhouse disturbed I heard Cat shout at one of her horses. She wanted to get airborne again.
The little winged guy buzzed up to within a few feet of me. He settled his plump rump onto the outstretched bronze palm of one of the few nonmilitary statues in the park. He had an arrow across his bow. His moonlighted expression said he meant to use it. “Know you’re around here somewhere, Slick. Know you’re close enough to hear. That was a nifty stunt, turning sideways to reality to give the kid the slip.” Weed smoke had begun to cloud up around his head. He ought to be too stoned to breathe. “But fun is fun, and I don’t think you’re gonna have much more if you don’t come in now. You don’t got no other friends.”
I figured the Godoroth crew had tried to reel me in, irked because I had been trafficking with the enemy, and now they were triple irked because I had done a fade. I considered taking advantage of my invisibility to get a closer look at them. But I was worn out. I just wanted to go home. Reason told me home was no safer than out here, but the animal within me wanted to believe otherwise, wanted to slide into its den and lick its wounds. I kept the sack of invisibility around me till I was sure the flying runt had gotten lost.
I caught his buzz again as I was about to leave the park. I stepped into deep shadow and froze. Thus I was out of sight and motionless when two huge owls flapped over moments later. Though they were talking owl talk, the girls were bickering virulently.
I chuckled. To myself, of course.
Let them go butt heads with the Godoroth.
Knowing the Shayir were around put some extra hustle into my step. Good thing, too. Wasn’t long before I began to feel a chill. It grew. I found another deep shadow and shrank down into it. I was crouched there when Abyss the Coachman floated across my backtrail like a black, wind-tossed specter. Looked like he had been sent to patrol the routes from the park to my home.
Had that been set up ahead? Had they expected an escape attempt?
You get paranoid.
I’d always thought gods were big on omniscience and such. Maybe as your followers become fewer you have less ability to draw on the power leaking over from the old country. Certainly if either bunch had any way of knowing things for themselves they would have no need for me. And I wouldn’t be running around loose.
Paranoia. I had a bad feeling mat when the smoke cleared and the earth stopped rocking and the dust settled, neither bunch would have much use for a mortal pug who had gotten his nose into too many divine secrets.
Something to keep in mind.
I heard a rustling. It came from the south. It grew louder quickly. Nog? No. Not Nog the Malodorous. Marvellous. I crouched in another shadow. Something passed overhead like a flight of bats but was not bats. More like fluttering paper shadows in a big hurry, moving with great purpose, hunting. Might that be the thing called Quilraq the Shadow? I wasn’t inclined to hang around and find out.
I stuck to alleys and breezeways that would not have been graced by my presence at any other time. I even crossed the Bustee, the deadliest slum in town, where nine of any ten inhabitants would have cut my throat for the shoes I was wearing and the gods themselves would walk in peril. Twice I turned to Maggie’s wonderful cord to fend off overeager shoppers. That was one handy tool, but I was getting reluctant to use it. It could be no coincidence that every time I did one of the Godoroth turned up soon afterward.
No exception in the Bustee, either
. Each time it was one of the ugly guys that came, too, like the Godoroth knew those mean streets well enough to send only their meanest and most expendable. The streets emptied quickly after that, even though the locals could not see what was scaring the bean sprouts out of them.
I tried to see the bright side. The Shayir were not turning up at the same time. They were, apparently, only running random patrols in areas that interested their opponents.
The ugly guys were not Nog. Nor were they especially powerful other than in the scary department. I ducked and dodged them with little difficulty. On the other hand, I suspected everyone now had a solid idea of where I was headed. Whole platoons of divine beasties might be setting up camp near my house.
Owls and paper shadows, flying horses and flying babies who smoked weed crisscrossed the night, possibly taking their bearings from Godoroth on the ground. It was a wonder they didn’t collide.
I changed course the minute I cleared the Bustee, skirting its eastern edge as I headed north. I mean, what would Mrs. Cardonlos say if I brought this all home and the gods themselves started duking it out in Macunado Street?
It seemed a better strategy would be to go where the gods wouldn’t look, then stay put till their deadline passed. Put them all out of business.
Faces and figures flickered through my memory. Such a pity I couldn’t pick and choose. There were some divine ladies amongst those gods, and the world might become a lesser place for their absence.
26
I drifted more than a mile north and east of my original course. I attracted no attention but never made up my mind where to go, either. Then I changed my mind.
This was like being back in the Corps. The people in charge didn’t know what they were doing. I cussed the guy giving me orders. I told me to shut up and do what I was told.
I’d decided that I did have to go home. I needed to see the Dead Man. He needed to know what had become of me. Maybe he could find a thread of sense in this madness. There was more going on than I had been told, and I still had only a glimmering of the rules of the game I was being forced to play.