Cruel Zinc Melodies

by Glen Cook

  Three freelance socialists were scattered over a quarter acre of floor, physically undamaged. Two were hard at work babbling, one in tongues and the other talking to his dead mama. The third was in a coma. But there was no evidence of any big fight between the sorcerers and the ghosts.

  The thing down underground seemed content. I saw only a few indeterminate shimmers, uninterested in us. Saucerhead hadn’t minded coming inside.

  “Garrett. Hey. You got to see this.” Saucerhead pointed into the cellar.

  “What?”

  “Couple guys who must have been in a blind rush to get away.”

  I joined him. Colonel Block joined us. The lighting was feeble down there. Most of the lamps had burned out. But I could make out two men who did appear to have fallen, possibly while running blindly.

  One had hit down where Rocky’s leavings were piled. He still twitched. He cut loose a long moan that might have been a cry for help.

  Furious Tide of Light joined us. Barate Algarda was close behind. She used her timid little voice to ask us to get the inside lamps burning again.

  “Good idea,” I said. Wondering where the hell the lamp oil was hidden. I hadn’t seen any during my prowls. “There’s got to be a better way to light a place this size.” Then I jumped, startled.

  A glowering Tinnie Tate had turned up. Evidently, I’d had some sort of glint in my eye while talking to the Windwalker.

  I was too distracted to appreciate either lady. I’d been stricken by a fit of genius.

  Need a better way to light a place as big as the World? I had the answer.

  Go tell Kip Prose he needed to figure out how to do it. That kid can figure out how to do anything. If you hand him the challenge in the right way.

  “You’re getting a look on you that I don’t like, Malsquando.”

  All because I had my eyes pointed at a skinny little blonde while my genius was perking. I wasn’t seeing the Windwalker, let alone appreciating the view. I was trying to recall Kip’s comments about something we’d discussed in the once upon a time, long ago, while we were getting in a few minutes of time killing, hiding from some bad guys.

  It wouldn’t come. But I knew it was there. All I had to do was take it up with Kip, next time our paths crossed.

  Where the hell was the boy now? Had he paid attention when I’d told him to go see the Dead Man?

  “If he didn’t, I'll go see his mother,” I muttered. Reviewing some fond memories.

  “Whose mother? What are you?”

  “Tinnie. Darling. Sweetheart. Light of my heaven whom I love more than life itself. If you don’t stop this shit... Do I come around, sticking my oar in and getting underfoot when you’re trying to work?”

  That woman is a multiple personality. Ninety percent of the time she is the absolute center of her own universe. But once in a while, if you crack her between the eyes with a big enough stick, she'll step back from all-about-Tinnie long enough to look at something differently. Plus, I got to admit, the personality she shows me is one I pretty much handcrafted for myself.

  “I got it, Garrett,” she said. “I’m pretty sure.”

  “Pretty, anyway.” She might have a clue, after all. She sounded serious. And she didn’t call me Malsquando. “So, thank you, Light of My Life. Now let me get on with my work.”

  A core problem was, despite her having known me for ages, from days when my chosen profession pulled both of us into far harsher, deadlier, and spiritually more dangerous places, Tinnie can’t see what I do as real work.

  She doesn’t need to know, but I feel the same way, sometimes.

  I do what I do mostly because it’s better than working for somebody else.

  “Hey! Saucerhead.”

  Tharpe gave up looking into the pit. He came alongside, courageously inserting himself between me and the redhead, apparently under the misapprehension that I needed help. “What you got, Garrett?”

  “What I got is, I’m thinking I want to bail on this whole adventure for today. I want to head on home, talk it over with my motion-challenged sidekick, then get myself twelve hours in a real bed. Not to mention some of Dean’s home cooking.”

  “I could go for some a? all that my own self. But my boss is a prick. Ain’t no way I can get loose long enough to get some a’that for me.”

  I disdained any reply. I couldn’t win.

  He was laying the groundwork for some kind of extortion.

  “Attitude, Garrett,” Colonel Block said from behind me. “Everything depends on how people respond to a man’s attitude.”

  Everybody I know, given the ghost of a chance, piles it on, higher and deeper. Fanatically determined to make the world’s ills all my fault.

  Sometimes you just have to walk away.

  That’s what I told me as I headed west, leaving the World and its miserable environs to stew.

  No one else walked away? excepting Tinnie, who stuck tight. The rest all kept on keeping on, doing what needed to be done.

  I was going to hear it from the Dead Man. I was going to hear it from Max Weider and Manvil Gilbey, too. I might hear it from Alyx and her smoking crew. I might hear a little something from Colonel Westman Block and Director Relway, later. I might get the random admonitions from Dean, Tinnie, Tinnie’s niece Kyra, and even lovable, quiet Kip Prose. Hell, I might even hear it from my great-uncle Medford Shale before the final word got spoken. My acquaintances are a chatty bunch.

  Let them bark. I had to step outside of events for a while. I had to have some time out to see if I couldn’t get something to add up.

  The appearance of the freaky families of the Faction might have put a new spin on everything.

  75

  Singe opened the front door as I was about to let myself in. I told her, “Look what followed me home. You think I should keep her?”

  Tinnie shoved the back of her left hand under Singe’s nose like she expected the ratgirl to kiss it.

  An air of abiding amusement suffused the house.

  So did voices.

  “Do we have company?” Feeling stupid the instant I asked.

  “Yes. Mostly to do with business.” Getting in a dig, “You just missed Penny Dreadful.”

  No doubt because Old Bones told her I was coming. What had he had her doing now?

  Tinnie observed, “You’ve really put the fear of Garrett into that little girl, Malsquando.”

  “I can’t help entertaining a mild suspicion that Tate women are somewhere behind that.”

  Speaking of: A semihysterical peel of laughter came from the Dead Man’s room. That couldn’t be anybody but Kyra, Tinnie’s apprentice in the arts and sciences of heart-breaking. What was she doing here?

  I asked, “What?”

  Singe told me, “Go on in. I'll let Dean know you’re home.”

  The big, wicked grin Tinnie had worn while showing Singe the landscape of the back of her hand vanished. Dread replaced it. She was worried about her niece.

  My Miss Tate was scared walleyed that the other Miss Tate might be just like her favorite auntie.

  “Ha-ha-ha,” I said, softly. “What goes around.” I stepped into the Dead Man’s room.

  My arrival sparked a marked lack of hosannas.

  I stopped so suddenly that my sweetie plowed into me from behind.

  I was right. The airhead noises, still bubbling, came from Kyra Tate. Who had such a hold on Kip Prose that it looked like he’d never get away. Also on hand were Winger and the Remora. They seemed to be having a good time, too. There was a taint of beer in the air and an empty pitcher near every couple.

  And Winger was letting her little man be himself.

  Usually it’s like she has her hand up his behind, using him for a sock puppet. I mumbled, “Must be the wonderful compliance device at work.”

  Not so. These people are just happy. Good things have been happening while you were away.

  “Good to know not everything will head for hell in a handbasket if I’m not there to manage it.” />
  Old Bones sent, You have not had a good past few days.

  “There’s the understatement of the decade, Chuckles. Take a peek in here and see how they went.”

  He helped himself to a big dollop of Brother Garrett’s days of misery, sorting bits for processing in various minds. The man is becoming melodramatic as he approaches his elder years. Garrett, these past few days have been interesting but do not qualify for a place in your worst one hundred.

  Melodramatic? Me?

  Meantime, Tinnie worked the crowd, making sure everybody got a good look at the backside of her left hand. I snapped, “What the hell are you doing, Red?”

  Dean forestalled her by bustling in with a huge tray way overloaded with finger food. Singe was right behind with a teapot and a pitcher of beer. My mouth watered. I forgot Tinnie’s strange behavior.

  My right hand was headed for my mouth, loaded with something made of meat and cheese tangled up around a sliver of sour pickle. Miss Tate managed a left-handed interception. I growled, “Hey! I’m trying to eat here. I’m starving.”

  “What is it that you don’t see?”

  “Huh?”

  That aura of psychic? or psychotic? amusement spread through the house again. Sour old Dean managed a full-bodied chuckle.

  “My hand, Malsquando. Right there in your face. What is it that you don’t see?”

  I felt the abyss opening under my feet but I couldn’t help myself. I said, “I don’t see why you keep waving it in everybody’s face.”

  The girl has a little more tolerance for my density than I usually admit. She took a couple of deep breaths and counted to ten thousand before she told me, “That’s because there’s something missing, dear heart.”

  I grunted. That seemed safe enough.

  “There’s this man who’s going around telling people I’m his fiancée. But here I am, totally naked of any of the paraphernalia. Not to mention, he never bothered to ask my opinion on the subject.”

  The abyss has no bottom. It goes right on down, all the way, right out of this world into others where men blissfully shove their feet down their throats. Would I run into some blind fool falling the other way?

  I would’ve expected a little more moral support from my dependents. They do depend on me to keep a roof over their heads.

  I began to shake.

  The full flavor had begun to take hold.

  “Look out, there!” Jon Salvation said. “He’s going to have a seizure. Or maybe he’s going into cardiac arrest.”

  Winger said, “He’s gonna try to skate out on a bad health excuse.”

  I met Tinnie’s eyes. I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. I tried. Hard. Though I don’t know what I wanted to say.

  Anything coherent would have been useful.

  She was merciful. She pushed my hand on toward my mouth. Food entered the gaping maw. “Chew, Malsquando. Chew. We'll talk when we don’t have an idiot’s gallery kibitzing.”

  It took only a little of Tinnie having her own neck stuck out for her to back off. Some. For a while.

  A reckoning was coming.

  76

  Now that the entertainment portion of the evening has ended, suppose we consider business?

  I hadn’t come home to do anything but stuff my face, brood about getting snakebit, and hit the sack. But, yeah, oh yeah, now. Anything to distract me from “Where would we live?” and “What about babies?” and “Just how much responsibility does a man have to endure?” Not to mention “Why did you bail on everybody down there just when they were beginning to pick up the pieces?”

  There was a chance that these things were somehow related.

  A picture is coming together. Thanks to Miss Winger, Mr.... Salvation, Barate Algarda, and Garrett’s observations. With invaluable contributions from Miss Penny Dreadful.

  “What? Come on, Chuckles. That street kid can’t have anything to do with this.”

  In fact, she can. As an indefatigable foot soldier in the campaign to collect information. That she was not there besideyou, flashing ax in hand, when the World came apart around you, does not lessen her contribution. Nor does that lessen the contributions of Miss Winger and Mr. Salvation, both of whom have done yeoman work.

  “Mrs.,” I said without thinking. “She’s a Mrs.” Winger had kids and a husband somewhere, just not in TunFaire.

  Refrain from retailing trivia. And it is too late for regrets about having walked away when there was still much to be done and seen.

  He had me there. Even trudging home, with Tinnie getting burned because of my sullen silence, I’d felt increasingly guilty about shoving off in the middle of everything. And that just after I’d begun worrying about what Max and Gilbey would do.

  “I had to catch my breath.” Feeble, of course.

  Amusement. Perhaps. About Miss Dreadful. She is a reservoir of little-known myth and legend. Which I will share if you will relax. What is done is done. And there is nothing you can do about the other thing, either. Let us move on.

  I grunted. And considered my company. Was Kyra under the influence of something besides the Weider elixer? Why was Kip’s hair such a mess?

  The compliance device does not appear to be operating. I can only suppose that the younger Miss Tate shares a genetic flaw with her aunt.

  A shot. “That’s lovely.” I shuffled in place. I had to do something. I had nerves so bad sparks should’ve been crackling off me. Tinnie just sitting there...

  Singe chimed in with a total non sequitur. “Garrett, there was a message from a Mr. Jan. He says you need to come in for a fitting.”

  “Ha!” A grand new distraction. I’d focus on worrying about how the old tailor would react to what had become of his loaner coat.

  It didn’t work.

  Miss Dreadful had no direct? or indirect? knowledge of the entity beneath the theater. But she has suggested a possible legendary creature that fits the body of data that we have developed.

  “Which would be what?” He was playing to the full gallery, setting himself up for plaudits.

  Startled, I realized that I’d only thought that question. The scary elder Miss Tate, looking rattled herself, had offered the verbal version.

  Inspiration. “Keep an eye on Kyra, sweetheart. She’s doing her damnedest to lead that boy into temptation.” The kid was too young to get caught in the kind of cleft stick that had me squeezed.

  Tinnie puffed up like a big old toadie-frog, turned red, then exhaled. What Kyra was doing to Kip was hard to defend even employing the most acrobatic, convoluted female logic. If there was malice. Though I promise you, the boy wasn’t going to complain, either way.

  Of course, he might be working a little magic of his own.

  No, Garrett. I told you. The compliance device is silent. And the girl is not deliberately teasing. Both are acting their age. Can we get to business? Please?

  “Go. Talk to us. Legendary creatures.” I got to work on food and beer. Concentrating on the latter.

  We may have found a dragon.

  I sprayed pig-in-a-blanket. Dean barked at me. I ignored him. “No! You’re shitting me.”

  Not necessarily a dragon of legend. Not necessarily one of the absolute, lord of the scaly ones, slippery monsters of story. But an entity that fits the traditions, unseen.

  When I think dragon I picture a big-ass flying thunder lizard tearing stuff up and starting fires. Big fires. Kind of like an oversize, reptilian Marine.

  Not probable.

  “There ain’t no dragons,” Winger kicked in, supporting her boggled old campaigning buddy, Garrett. “They’re whatcha-macallums, arch types. Symbols for thoughts. Externalized.”

  Jon Salvation beamed.

  Damned if the runt wasn’t having an influence.

  I said I do not necessarily mean dragon in the literal, mythic, fire-breathing sense. That creature almost certainly never existed. Put storybook dragons out of your mind.

  Consider the concept of the deathmaiden instead.

 
; “Now you’re getting way out there in the tall weeds, Old Bones,” I said around a gobbet of soft white cheese. Pungent stuff. “What’s a deathmaiden?”

  Also called a cairnmaiden. A custom your peoples have abandoned in recent centuries. To the joy of young girls everywhere.

  “Cairnmaiden. Rings a bell, sort of. But it’s so far off I can barely hear the tinkle.”

  Some of your more remote ancestors thought it was a good idea to murder girl children and bury them under the gates to graveyards, or at the corners, or in the entranceways to burial mounds, or on top of a treasure that someone wanted left undisturbed. The theory being that the spirit of the deathmaiden would be so traumatized and outraged that she would stay around and savage anyone who disturbed her grave. The reasoning may be elusive to us today, but the fact is, everyone involved, including the murdered children, credited the concept absolutely.

  The fad today is to bury a vampire on top of your treasure.

  “Kind of a waste,” I observed. “Inasmuch as, traditionally, little girls grow up to be big girls. Why not use mothers-in-law? You’d get more attitude, you’d conserve a valuable resource, and you’d perform a public service.”

  Tinnie poked me. She was too busy eating to fight. But she wanted to remind me that she had a mother.

  If this relationship was going to go anywhere, we needed that finger turned into a deathmaiden.

  Winger asked, “What’re you snickering about, Garrett? This’s some grim shit.”

  “Lady fingers,” I said. “And that wasn’t no lady, that was my wife.”

  Winger told the Remora, “He’s lost it. It’s having that thing get inside his head all the time that done it.”

  Having that thing get inside his head all the time is what keeps him as sane as he is. Garrett. Set aside your panic over potential nuptials. The Weider establishment is paying us a fortune. We have to deliver.

  A fierce glower came over my true love’s face. But she had a full mouth and couldn’t comment. I pulled down a long draft of Weider’s finest. Which did little to ease my nerves. “Could you share the reasoning that brought you to such an unsettling conclusion? About the dragon, I mean.”