Whispering Nickel Idols

by Glen Cook

I have planted strong mindworms in all three servants of A-Laf. Deep fears and compulsions will carry them through the wrap-up. Even so, arm yourself. The deacon has a strong mind. The proximity of active jackals may attenuate the mindworm’s efficacy.

  “I see.” I didn’t comment on the fact that mind-worms weren’t imaginary anymore. Though I’d suspected hanky-panky with the facts when he’d sold the goods to Teacher White.

  Relax now. I have to fill the vacuum inside your skull with what you need to carry this stage through to its best conclusion.

  76

  A-Lafs minions hadn’t done badly, making connections round TunFaire, building on foundations provided by Harvester Temisk and Chodo Contague. Their associations with the Bledsoe and the Tersize family had been useful. Best of all, from their viewpoint, was an alliance on the Hill, with the Spellsinger Dire Cabochon, birth name Dracott Radomira, cadet of the royal family, a comparative unknown whose name never came up in any review of the ruling class’s crimes and misdemeanors. Cabochon was particularly useful because she was defunct, in fact though not yet legally. Unlike my resident cadaver, the old witch just sat in a corner mummifying. Her pals from out of town hadn’t reported that the air had gone out of her.

  The out-of-towners didn’t note the unnatural post-demise good health of the remains, either.

  The old witch must have sung spells around herself before she surrendered to the unavoidable. The right people might be able to bring her back. If they were of a mind.

  Not my problem. I wasn’t of a mind.

  Tinnie made noises indicating repugnance. I comforted her not at all. She’d insisted on tagging along. Let her enjoy all of it.

  I was still wasting mind time looking for an argument pointed enough to penetrate redheaded stubbornness and make Tinnie understand that there were parts of my life she shouldn’t share. I said, “It don’t smell bad for somebody being a long time dead.”

  Deacon Osgood’s crew wasted no time. They collected metal dogs, metal scraps, and metalworking tools from a sitting room converted into a workshop. If I was a cynic, I’d have thought they wanted to hustle me out of there.

  They piled everything into old vegetable sacks. Osgood was as happy as a guy working with a migraine. He feared the Watch would find out about this shanty now. But he couldn’t not help me.

  This would have been the administrative headquarters for A-Lafs TunFaire mission. The base in the Tersize establishment had been living quarters.

  I checked the dead woman. It wasn’t immediately obvious whether her demise had been natural or assisted. Colonel Block could work that out.

  There was a crackly sense about her that said, “Don’t touch!” I didn’t. That might be all it took to reanimate her.

  Old Bones must have known. He hadn’t informed the Watch. He didn’t want his scheme hip deep in law and order.

  “You. Garrett.” Deacon Osgood seldom spoke. When he did he sounded worn-out. “Carry this sack. You. Trollop —”

  Tinnie popped him between the eyes with a handy pewter doodad. Those eyes crossed. He staggered. His troops gawked. This was beyond their imagining. Still, I was glad Chuckles had taken time to stifle their natural tendencies to break people whenever something happened that they didn’t understand.

  “Ease off,” I told Tinnie. She was winding up for the coup de grace. “We need him.”

  She shed her weapon, but her look said hostilities would resume the instant the next chunk of sexual bigotry plopped out of Osgood’s mouth. Sweetly, “You were about to ask me something, Deacon?”

  Grunt. Headshake to clear cobwebs. “Sack. There. Carry.” He couldn’t get all the way to “please.” But that was all right. He’d been disadvantaged in his upbringing. By goats.

  Shortly, I noted that everything in need of carrying was in the hands of someone who could do the lugging, but the good old deacon wasn’t weighted down with anything heavier than his conscience. I asked Tinnie, “Worth making a scene?”

  “Let’s get what we want out of him first.” I’d seen that look before, mainly when I’d done something to offend. I’d enjoyed an opportunity for regrets every time.

  Silverman examined every tool and every piece of metal before saying, “Satisfactory. I can work with this.” He asked Osgood. “Are you one of the artisans?”

  Osgood shuddered like a dog trying to pass a peach pit. The compulsion remained solid. “No. Those who survived are imprisoned now.”

  I asked Silverman, “Will that be a problem?”

  “No. It will just take longer to fulfill your principal’s needs.”

  Tinnie smirked, reading my mind. Deftly, I managed to disappoint her. “Not yet. Let’s get what we want out of him first.” Not that I knew what that was. The Dead Man had stuffed my mush with stuff without ever betraying his plan.

  Silverman barked. Men and women, young and old, all obviously related, swarmed. They grabbed the stuff we’d brought. I muttered in language forms I hadn’t used much since coming home from the war. I’d have my nose to the grinder for years to pay for this.

  Silverman told me, “You. Out. I’ll send word when it’s ready.” He told Tinnie, “You can stay.” Instead of popping him, a la Osgood, she kissed his cheek. He glowed.

  The deal with Osgood was that he’d be cut loose now. We parted outside Silverman’s workshop. I hoped he and his crew would hop a keelboat back to

  Ymber, but told Tinnie, “Call me cynical. I’d bet we haven’t seen the last of them.”

  Disgruntled, I headed toward home. Wondering how long the Watch would let Osgood run loose.

  Those tailing us decided that keeping tabs on Ymberian rubes was more important than watching me. Which conformed to the Dead Man’s prognostications.

  I had instructions against the chance that I found myself running free.

  77

  “You know either one of those guys?” Tinnie and I were peeking around the corner of a decrepit redbrick tenement. The men in question had Harvester Temisk’s dump staked. There was no foot traffic. They stood out. They weren’t happy.

  The weather was turning again. And wasn’t going to be long getting nasty. The sky was filthy.

  “No.” Tinnie was shivering. She wanted to go somewhere warm. But she was made of stern enough stuff not to whine after having bullied me into letting her tag along. “I don’t. Should I?”

  “I hope not. They’re the lowliest lowlifes. The tall one works for Deal Relway.” I’d seen him with Relway occasionally. But I let her think I’d deduced it, employing special detective powers. “The other one is a gangland operator.” Actually, more likely a stringer or wannabe on the pad now because Relway’s fervent work ethic had drained the bad-boy manpower pool down to the muck on the bottom. I knew him by affected mannerisms and dress, paramount to him when it would be smarter to be invisible.

  Relway’s man recognized him, too.

  He, however, hadn’t made the lawman, despite his being right there in plain sight. I explained. “So what you do is —”

  “You’re trying to get rid of me.”

  “I’m trying to utilize your talents since you’re here. Go tell the sloppy one you’re lost. Bat your eyes. Get him to help you.”

  “Why not the tall, handsome one?”

  “Because he’s tall and handsome? And, probably, not likely to be distracted by a pretty face. Not to mention, if he leaves to help you, the other dimwit won’t tag along. He doesn’t know that Handsome is there.”

  She mulled that. “The tall one would follow?”

  “I would. I’d figure that you were a messenger. I’d want to see what was up.” Because I’d know that the Sculdytes had gotten hammered, so this fool would be working for someone else whose interests paralleled those of the departed faction.

  In this neighborhood that meant good old Teacher White.

  “Scoot,” I told Tinnie. “Vamp the man. Get him out of here.” I dug in my pocket. The key was there. Harvester Temisk had managed, somehow, to lose it
while he was at my place. I didn’t know what the Dead Man had gotten from him, just that he wanted me to toss Temisk’s place. Something the Watch and the Outfit had done already, I suppose.

  “If he touches me...”

  “I’ll die of envy.”

  She stuck out her tongue, headed out. Haughtily.

  I couldn’t have scripted it better. Her victim didn’t have one ounce of brain above his beltline. Tinnie set her hook, pulled him in, and led him away in as much time as it takes to tell it. And Relway’s man decided he needed to see what was going on.

  78

  It was gloomy inside Temisk’s digs. Not much light crept in through the feeble excuses for windows. There wasn’t a lot out there to spare. But I didn’t fire up a lamp. Its light would slip out and alert the world that somebody was housebreaking.

  The first thing I learned was that nobody had had a notion to toss the place. Though it did look like somebody had taken a polite look around.

  I did little but walk around at first, getting a sense of the place. The Dead Man wanted me to find something. Unarmed with a single hint.

  The building was three stories tall. Temisk had the ground floor, which wasn’t all that big. Who lived upstairs? I couldn’t recall having ever seen any other tenants.

  I checked the street. It was a ghost town out there. Fat flakes had begun to swirl, anticipating the main event. I slipped out. It had gotten colder fast. A nasty wind snapped and snarled between buildings. I crossed, turned, immediately saw where the stair to the upper floors had been. It had had an outside entrance on the right side as I faced the building. The outside steps were gone. A bricklayer had done well matching colors but hadn’t disguised the shape of the old entrance.

  Upstairs windows had received the same treatment.

  Not unusual in a city where everybody is paranoid about invasions and break-ins.

  I caught movement from the corner of my eye. A long, lean, slumped figure shuffled toward me, obscured by the snowfall, hunched miserably.

  I drifted back into Temisk’s place.

  Skelington hove to outside.

  So. Teacher was still in the game. Without showing much imagination.

  I resumed examining Temisk’s place. Nothing jumped out. It wouldn’t if it wasn’t supposed to. But, there was a grand fireplace on the wall backing on the stairwell. A fireplace that didn’t look like it saw much use. In a location that made no architectural sense.

  I’d just discovered the iron rungs in the unnaturally ample chimney when somebody tried the street door. There were voices there. Querulous.

  I quickly kicked the fireplace gewgaws back into place, hoisted myself. I’d just gotten the feet out of sight when the newcomers busted in.

  “Where did he go?” Teacher demanded. “Quick. Check in back. Maybe there’s another way out.” Feet tramped around, fast and heavy.

  “There ain’t no back way,” Skelington said. “I watched this place enough to know.”

  “Good for you. I’m really trusting your good sense and thinking these days.”

  There were four of them. I was in no shape to handle those odds. Not even Teacher and his clowns. It had been a long day. And the samsom weed still had some effect.,

  “Ain’t no sign of him, Boss.” I didn’t know that voice.

  “Allee allee in free, Garrett,” Teacher called. “Come out, come out, wherever you are. Skelington, you sure he came in here?”

  “I was right there in the damned street.” Skelington didn’t have much patience left for his chief. I couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t defected already.

  “All right. All right. And you let the girl get away, Pike?”

  “Wasn’t no ‘let’ to it, Boss. I told you. That Tin Whistle was all over me soon as I made my move. She bugged on both of us. I wouldn’t of come got you if she didn’t. Hell, I’m lucky I got away from the damned Runner. I could be sharing a cell tonight in the Al-Khar.”

  Teacher grumbled something about maybe that would’ve learned him something.

  None of those boys were happy. Nothing was going their way, they had no use for each other, and the guy in charge had gone totally whiny. They were sticking together out of habit and a slim hope that the worm would turn.

  Teacher muttered, “That bastard is here somewheres. Temisk must of told him about his secret places.”

  “What secret places is that, Boss?”

  “I don’t know! Shit! Think, Vendy! He’s a fuckin’ lawyer. That means he steals stuff an’ hides people from the Watch. An’ shit like that.”

  Ah. Brother White had been loading up on the artificial courage. “He never worked for nobody but Chodo, Boss.”

  “Don’t you never believe that, Vendy. Don’t you never. He mighta said that. He mighta had Chodo snowed. But he never really worked for nobody but Harvester Temisk. He’s a fuckin’ lawyer. He had something going on under the table. Where the fuck is that creep? I need to break some bones. Take a look up that damned chimbly.”

  That was it. I was caught. If I scrambled up, I’d give me away with the racket. But Vendy would spot me if I stayed where I was.

  It was one of life’s special moments.

  A face appeared below. Vendy just looking so Teacher would shut the hell up. His eyes almost popped. I whacked on his bald spot.

  He fell to his knees, mumbling. Conscious but incoherent. Teacher growled, “Ya fell outta the goddamn chimbly? You’re one useless piece a pork snot.”

  I climbed while there was moaning and complaining to cover the noise. Only a few feet farther up I stepped out into the stairwell that had been bricked off at street level. Wan light dribbled down from a far skylight too small to admit the skinniest burglar. At high noon in clear summer weather it wouldn’t have admitted much light. It served more as a beacon now.

  I did not, however, go charging on up.

  I explored the new territory foot by foot, looking for an ambush or booby trap.

  Below, “You’re shitting me. There ain’t nobody in here.”

  Mumble whine mumble.

  “Right. Skelington. Climb on up in there.”

  Graphically, and with a marked lack of respect, Skelington finally resigned his position with Team White. He had other options.

  “All right. Pike, you go.”

  “Right behind you, Boss. I got your back.”

  The front door rattled and slammed. Teacher’s whole crew electing to seek their fortunes elsewhere. A clever boy, rendered abidingly suspicious by experience, I didn’t count on what I heard being what actually happened.

  But it did seem to be.

  Only Teacher stayed. He cussed and muttered and slammed things around. And slammed things around. And lightened a flask or two that he was lugging. He began to mumble in tongues.

  Bottled courage, mixed liberally with stupid and anger, drove him into the chimbly. Muttering steadily, he climbed. He slipped twice before he got into the closed stairwell. “I knew that sumbitch had shit hid. Goddamn lawyers. They’re all alike. Bunch a thieves.” He climbed the stair one step at a time, a hand on each wall, forgetting that the danger ahead once looked fierce enough to send somebody else up first.

  I heard my name mentioned. His opinion hadn’t improved.

  He was huffing and puffing and didn’t put up much of a struggle when I disarmed him. He just whimpered and gave up. I tied him up with whatever was handy. He started snoring.

  I lit lamps and commenced a serious examination of Harvester’s hideaway. And was amazed. Harvester Temisk definitely had an inflated notion of his own cleverness.

  The first lamp came off a trestle table covered with the alchemist’s gear Temisk had used to prepare his firestone surprises. Evidence to convict was there. A lot was on paper. Standouts were a map and notes about Whitefield Hall, that neighborhood, and the disposability of one Buy Claxton. The papers lay under a loaf of bread that had not yet sprouted a beard.

  Harvester had visited since the birthday party. With the place being w
atched. He had a secret way in.

  No surprise there. In TunFaire, some neighborhoods have a problem with buildings collapsing because of all the tunneling underneath.

  I’d look into that later.

  So Temisk had hidden out here. Smirking. Without being as clever as he thought. It hadn’t been that hard for me to get in.

  Temisk was big on books. And not orderly. They were everywhere on the second floor. Dozens of books. Scores of books. A fortune in books. Only churches and princes can afford real books. I recalled my idea about ratfolk copyists. And wondered where Temisk had stolen those books. He’d never been flush enough to buy any.

  The third floor was more orderly. It was furnished but hadn’t been used. I concluded immediately that the mouthpiece had created a sanctuary for his friend. Long ago. And never got the chance to use it. When he did get hold of Chodo he hadn’t been able to sneak the old boy in.

  Back to the second floor, where I discovered that Harvester was a compulsive diarist. The Dead Man must’ve known. And hadn’t bothered to tell me.

  Almost every moment and every thought ever experienced by Harvester Temisk seemed to have been recorded, on a profusion of mostly loose papers.

  The lamp was almost empty. I’d dozed off twice, though Temisk’s memoirs were interesting. Each time I did, Teacher White stopped snoring. His trying to slip his bonds woke me up.

  Then the yelling started downstairs.

  I stayed quiet.

  Teacher had a notion to fuss, then didn’t because he recognized voices.

  That was Winger bellowing. And Tinnie, slightly more ladylike. And Saucerhead, looking for me. Presumably in a snowstorm. In the middle of the night. All worried. And I didn’t want to reveal my discoveries. Not to Winger.

  I’d figured out the Dead Man’s scheme. I thought.

  If I didn’t do something, though, they’d start looking for the body. And find everything else. That damned Winger. Always in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  I grabbed pen and ink. The devils in the sky smiled on me. For once. The nib was sharp. The ink was fresh. I wrote a quick note. Now to sneak it down where somebody could find it. I crept past Teacher and down the stairs. As I eased into the chimney I heard Winger cursing and banging things.