by Glen Cook
Cat was there already, a recovered Fourteen in her lap, shaking. Magodor seemed surprised. “Who is she?” The cherub she recognized, at least by tribe.
The Dead Man touched me weakly. Bring the Shayir girls, Garrett. Ladies, if you please, a little less intense.
Like the Loghyr said, what good is nerve if you don’t use it?
I went to the small front room. The owl girls cowered in a corner, too frightened to try a getaway. Maggie must be a real smouldering bitch.
Guess you don’t pick up a nickname like The Destroyer because you fudge at marbles.
“Come with me, girls. Calmly. No need to be scared. We’re just going to talk.”
One — Dimna, I think — tried to run. I caught her, held on, patted her back. She settled right down. I opened an arm, and the other came for a hug. They really were simple.
The followers of the Shayir pantheon must have been pretty simple themselves.
Hell, I think No-Neck said they were lowest common denominator back when we were field-testing the Weider product. Or was that the Dead Man? Did it matter?
“It’ll be all right,” I promised the girls. I didn’t mind seeing Imar and Lang plop back into the Black Lake of Whatsis, but to condemn similarly these two would be too cruel. The world could use more happy gods and goddesses.
I yelled, “Dean! Bring beer for me.”
Dean came from the kitchen as I held the Dead Man’s door for the girls. He had a big pot of tea, several mugs, and all the side stuff. The water must have been on. My beer was there. With backup. He told me, “I thought you might need fortification.” He could not keep his eyes off the girls. His tray started to shake.
“That’s an understatement.”
Dean started to ask something but then saw Magodor trying to intimidate everyone with one of her nastier looks.
“Maggie, knock it off!” I snapped before I thought. “No wonder you guys worked your way down to the strong end of the Street. You had a stupid boss, yeah, but I haven’t seen much to recommend the rest of you, either. Cat! Stop shaking. That cup belonged to my mother. It’s about the last thing of hers I have left.”
The Dead Man managed to slide in, What are you doing?
65
I was trying to break everybody’s mental stride. If they were off balance they might think instead of just reacting.
It worked. Sort of.
Everybody stopped to gawk at me.
I said, “We came close to disaster last night. Because of stupidity and thoughtlessness. Imar and Lang nearly cost us the wall between this world and the darkness. The goddesses who set them up didn’t show any forethought, either. It shouldn’t have taken any genius to anticipate their behavior. Magodor, you never seemed stupid. When you maneuvered the ladies so they would manipulate the males...”
Garrett.
I was on a roll. I didn’t want to hear from anybody yet.
“No,” Magodor snapped.
Garrett, I fear it may be less simple than you think, complex as that is.
“Huh?”
Cat, Fourteen, and the owl girls contributed silence. I expected nothing more. Adeth, though, was turning out to be an unexpected zero.
The Adeth creature is no goddess, Garrett. I can read nothing there. And this is for the very good reason that there is nothing there.
“What?” It was me off balance now.
This Adeth is a construct. A golem or dibbuk, if you will, here specifically to catch your eye. We should get it out of the house. Its ultimate purpose may be more sinister.
I slipped my arm around the redhead’s waist. I tried to lead her away.
Nope. Nothing doing. All of a sudden that little bit had the inertia of a pyramid.
“Cat. You know something about Adeth. You’d better let us know.” I watched Magodor. Near as I could tell, she was unaware of what the Dead Man had sent me.
She cannot read me at all. I cannot get through to her. Presumably the dibbuk is blocking me.
Cat did not respond immediately.
I relayed the Dead Man’s observations. The owl girls developed cases of the sniffles. Magodor considered Adeth. “Interesting. You were trying to get rid of her?”
“Yeah.”
Magodor seemed to vibrate. A baby thunderclap announced Adeth’s departure. “She is in the street again.”
“Do you know anything about Adeth?”
“She was someone Imara knew. I never heard of her before Imara organized the plot to rid us of Imar and Lang and the others. She had no trouble making herself visible to mortals and could change her appearance quickly. Her only direct part was supposed to be to bring you to us, making Abyss, Daiged, and those think she might be one of the Shayir.”
Cat said, “Mother got the whole plot idea from Adeth.”
Did that make Maggie sit up? You betcha. Me, too.
“How long ago?” I asked. “Cat, I don’t think you were any accident. You were created deliberately so your mother could assume...”
“Stop.”
“I’m sorry. But...”
“Just stop.”
“Plausible,” Magodor observed. “Very plausible. Assuming she feared someone very powerful, a mortal identity would be a good place to hide.”
“Please stop.”
Adeth.
“Who or what is Adeth? It’s very important.”
“She was my mother’s friend. I don’t know. Maybe even her lover. She had a lot. When Imar wasn’t looking. Adeth was just always around, ever since I was little. She never even noticed me.”
Magodor snapped, “Where is your mother now? Where is the real Adeth?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been here.”
I heard Dean scoot along the hallway. The front door opened, then slammed. “What the hell?”
The bird. I had him put out.
“Good. Find him a cat to play with.” I asked Magodor, “What do you know about Adeth?”
“Nothing. The name was new to me when Imara said we would use her to manage you. Her plot had many friends.”
“How many of you are there? You really don’t know everyone in your racket?”
“No, I don’t. No one has any idea how many thousands or what kinds of us came across in the great migration. There’s never been any reason to know. Do you know everyone in this great sump of a city?”
No. Of course not. I don’t even know everybody on my block. People come and go. But that was different. Wasn’t it? I wasn’t in the Three-O racket. Nobody expected omniscience, omnipotence, or omnipresence from me.
Petty pewter, No-Neck. Petty pewter. All of them.
The more I had contact with them, the smaller the gods seemed. Maybe the poet was right about familiarity breeding contempt.
Garrett. The dibbuk has decided to return. Or has been instructed to do so.
Whichever, a tremendous crash came from the front of the house. A moment later Dean and the Goddamn Parrot both started exercising their voices in protest.
I told Magodor, “It came back.”
66
Magodor tossed the goddess-golem back into the street. “I’m not strong enough to push it any farther.” She was surprised.
The dibbuk headed for the house again.
People were aware that something weird was happening. The street was clearing fast.
I whimpered about the damage to my door until I saw smug Mrs. Cardonlos staring, grinning because she’d just found fresh ammunition to use in her campaign to condemn me.
“What do you think, Old Bones?”
Wholly on an intuitional level, I suspect we would find no Adeth — not this Adeth — on any roll of gods.
Intuition, for him, is filling gaps in already chancy information webs by applying his several minds. He is very good at filling gaps with plausible and possible gossamers. But he won’t betray his thinking until he has everything nailed down, beyond dispute. He hates being wrong way more than he hates being dead.
“You’re that s
ure? That you’ll tell me now?”
No. There is a matter of probabilities and risks and their comparative magnitude. If I am correct, time wasted filling the remaining gaps is time we can ill afford to waste. Particularly now that the villains must face the possibility that I suspect the truth.
Only the Dead Man would think enough of himself to fancy himself a threat to the gods.
“Better come out with it, then.”
Relay this. I cannot reach the others all at once.
“Listen up, folks. His Nibs has a big story coming out.”
The Adeth dibbuk was created specifically as an instrument by which you could be manipulated, Garrett. You were chosen because you were certain to become a focus for conflict. You were intended and expected to become a continuous provocation.
“Little old me? Broke their hearts, didn’t I?”
Enough, Garrett. Listen. You can do your tongue exercises later.
The reprimand seemed to get through to everyone else.
Behind the contest for the last place on the Street of the Gods, behind the feminist schemes of Imara and her allies in several pantheons, beyond even Magodor’s secret ambition to anoint herself the senior power of a grim new all-female religion, there has been a manipulator whose sole mission has been to provoke clashes like those at the Haunted Circle.
Wait! he snapped as Magodor started to snarl something in reply.
The ultimate cause behind the conflict is not that animating Imara and her sisters. Garrett. You told me that numerous gods not of Godoroth or Shayir provenance joined the fighting. But there is no reason they should have favored one cause above another. Revenge amidst confusion, of course, makes sense. But they would have needed to be primed and ready for sudden opportunity. Having followed the road this far, the questions I come up against are Who? and Why? And the why comes easier than the who.
“I’ll bite,” I told him. Magodor and the owl girls, even Cat and Fourteen, were intrigued, too.
Your dream, in which Magodor showed you the home of the gods, indicates that at some level it is possible to communicate between this world and that. I am going to strut out onto a limb now. I am going to postulate that the Great Old Ones over there have seduced someone here into opening the way. He or she has failed a few times. Another effort will be imminent. Even the dullest conspirator would have to be concerned that enough random evidence is loose to suggest the truth to anyone interested enough to put the pieces together.
Add the fact that I am known to be involved, and desperate measures are sure to follow.
The Dead Man lacks nothing in his confidence in his own significance.
I thought maybe he was reaching a little, but I couldn’t think of any reason to reject his big picture. It did not contradict any known facts, nor did I notice any left over. That wasn’t the case with any of my theories.
“Maggie?”
“Garrett, I weary of your familiarities. But I will restrain my ire. There may be substance to what you say. It illuminates many strangenesses of recent times.” She became introspective. Her appearance deteriorated. She developed a bad case of too many arms and fangs. Body odor began to be a problem, too.
I started to say something. She raised a hand. “Wait.” She thought some more. “I cannot guess who is at the center. But I am sure that someone knows or soon will know whatever the Adeth thing learned here. There will be an effort to silence us.”
Oh boy. What a promotion. I always wanted to be the dot at the center of a really big target. “Ah...”
“Word must be spread, even if it isn’t believed. Fast. Everywhere, like a tree spreading a million seeds. So that one takes root somewhere. You. You. You.” She seized the owl girls and Fourteen. She glared into their eyes. They shuddered, whimpered, disappeared. For an instant I feared Magodor herself might be the mole of darkness.
“I scattered them, Garrett. Sent them to deities I know well, armed with tokens guaranteeing that I sent the message. I asked for help, too. I will stay here. Adeth will come here.”
“I applaud your confidence.”
“I am Magodor the Destroyer. I deal in violent confrontation.”
“I know, but...”
“Reinforcements will be welcome.”
“Witnesses, too.”
I looked at the Dead Man. He sent, I am trying to fathom the identity of the traitor. There is insufficient evidence.
I relayed that to Magodor, said, “There isn’t any evidence. But at this point I don’t think it much matters. We just don’t turn our backs on anybody who might be a holy shapeshifter.”
In a tiny voice Cat suggested, “It must be my mother.”
I hadn’t seen a lot of Imara, but I felt comfortable saying, “No. She isn’t smart enough.”
The Dead Man offered his own opinion. Not impossible, Garrett. If the genuine Imara has been displaced. You said it yourself. Adeth is a shapechanger.
I saw something then. “The plan wouldn’t have been for Imara to replace Cat. It would’ve been for Adeth to. Cat has a real history, even if it’s been secret. And a mortal is easier to do away with and dispose of. Cat’s demigoddess nature would cover a lot of questions about her replacement being odd. And the whole imposture would only have to last till the breakthrough came.”
My guesses meant it had to be an old, old plot, reaching back for decades, always pointed toward the moment when pantheons like the Godoroth and Shayir could be brought into conflict. But the gods have time to unwind protracted schemes.
Cat was in a bad spot emotionally. I was willing to bet that she’d entertained similar suspicions for quite a while. Like everyone dealt a cruel hand, she had trouble facing the truth squarely.
The tears started. I held her. She shook violently with the hurt, with the grief.
67
We do not know that Imara was lost.
“Doesn’t matter, though. If we’ve guessed right.”
No.
“You feel Magodor?” Old sweet and deadly had vanished while I was getting Cat settled.
She is all around us. I have a better sense of her inner being now that she is not incarnate.
“For some reason that don’t sound good.”
He avoided the implicit question about the nature of the soul of a goddess. Such a goddess! She is troubled. There has been no response to her messages. She fears they were intercepted.
It could not have been more than ten minutes, but, “Shit!” I don’t swear a lot, but I don’t make last stands against hordes of male-bashing goddesses very often, either. And that is what I expected. All Imara’s pals would turn up to put the last seal on their triumph. “It was nice knowing you, Old Bones. Once in a while. We’d better get Dean out of here.” I didn’t see any reason for them to be after him. He didn’t know anything.
Make haste.
I went into the kitchen. Dean was boiling water for more tea. But it was just boiling. He was terrified, trying to cope by working to rote. “Go to one of your nieces’ places, Dean. Now. Don’t stop to pack. Don’t stop to do anything. Just put the pot down and get out.”
He looked at me, jaw frozen. He must have overheard and guessed enough.
Too bad. He’d been a religious man.
“Now, Dean. There’s no time for anything else.” I gripped his shoulder, shook him gently. His eyes un-glazed. He moved, but without much speed. “Hurry!”
There were people in the street when I let him out, but only the most daring souls. There was a crackling sense of expectancy out there. I saw no sign of the Adeth golem.
Mrs. Cardonlos seemed positively orgiastic, so eager was she for the gathering shitfall to head my way. Someday I need to take time out to figure why she has so much bile for me.
I waved, tossed her a kiss.
That will help.
“Nothing will help. Might as well have fun with her.” Considering what could be headed our way, Mrs. Cardonlos’ displeasure wasn’t particularly worrisome.
The light b
egan to take on a strange quality. It went to a dark butter tone and on to butterscotch.
“What’s happening, Old Bones?”
Magodor is forming herself into a protective dome.
Sweet, sweet Maggie. I never had a bad thought about you, darling.
She was just in time. As Mrs. Cardonlos began to glower nervously at whatever she saw from her vantage, and as the handful of folks in the street hastened to correct their error, a lightning bolt struck from the cloudless sky. It ricocheted, crisped down the street scant yards from my irksome neighbor, spent itself on the lightning rod of a small apartment building.
Its sparkle had not yet died when a humping lump of darkness appeared, coming down Macunado. Nog is inescapable. Just in case I had forgotten.
“Gods damn.”
Easy.
“He’s not alone.” All the Shayir females except Black Mona accompanied him, as did that flutter of black leaves. Quilraq had not been lost at Bohdan Zhibak. I chuckled. Today Mrs. Cardonlos could see them, too.
Lila and Dimna got through.
I glanced down Macunado’s slight grade. Dean was still visible, but he was wasting no time. I wished he would turn into a side street and get out of sight.
He staggered as something flashed past. An instant later, Jorken materialized in the middle of Macunado. He trailed a mist that gathered itself to become Star. She certainly bugged Mrs. Cardonlos’ eyes.
The Godoroth and Shayir ignored one another. The air crackled as Magodor communicated with everyone. My head began to hurt.
“Old Bones, how come Star and the Shayir girls are here? Weren’t they part of Imara’s plot?”
Another lightning bolt ricocheted and racketed around.
In Star’s case, Imara probably was not willing to trust so shallow a mind. With regard to the Shayir, the question deserves close scrutiny. Obviously, Lang was slated for disposal. Black Mona remained loyal and shared his fate. Therefore one or more of...
Whatever he sent I repeated aloud. As I said “Therefore...” small hell broke loose. Paving geysered amidst the Shayir. A frosty brick fell at my feet. One female surrendered immediately. I got the feeling, on that level where pain was gnawing its way into my head, that she accepted Magodor’s accusations and wanted to change sides. She was a spring-type goddess, into renewal and that sort of thing.