Wicked Bronze Ambition

by Glen Cook

I hadn’t paid close attention but thought I’d heard that an allergy to marriage ran in the family.

  Once again it appeared that failure to marry was no guarantee against catching parenthood.

  Bonegrinder muttered, “Their mother will lose it. There’ll be hell to pay now.”

  He didn’t explain. I didn’t understand but didn’t get a chance to ask.

  Satisfied that I had gotten friends and family updated, Tara Chayne said, “I was hoping you would come with us when we go get Mariska, Barate. Kyoga, Richt, you’re welcome to join us. Kyoga? Are you all right?”

  Pale, Barate’s friend had settled onto a chest. He sat there hunched over like a man suffering grievous stomach pains. He did not respond the first time Tara Chayne spoke to him.

  “Kyoga Stornes.” She employed a distinct Hill lord’s voice, arrogantly certain of its power and rights. “Speak to us.”

  “Uh . . . Uh . . .” He was struggling with some huge conflict. “I don’t get it. It isn’t possible. I’ve got to be wrong. But what if I’m not? I can’t let Meyness . . .” The battle was leaking now. It made no sense even with him trying to articulate it. Even Barate couldn’t guess what the hell his problem was.

  Tara Chayne said, “Barate, I’ll defer to you. You’re the polished Kyoga-with-the-vapors wrangler. Do something.”

  He had these fits all the time?

  Sighing, Barate stepped over. He clapped a sympathetic hand on my right shoulder as he passed. We were now comrades in tragedy.

  Ted eased closer to Shadowslinger. I did so, too, feeling slightly odd. Not that long ago I’d spent days that seemed like months sitting watch over Morley while he was in a coma. Now my grandmother-in-law was roaming the twilight between here and the other side. Another creature, in a similar state, lay in the house on Macunado, in the very room where Morley had begun his recovery.

  Too many people I knew were hanging around death’s doorstep lately, after too many others had gone on through already.

  Barate gripped Kyoga’s shoulder the way he had mine. He squeezed hard.

  Kyoga barked, “Hey! Barate! What the hell?”

  “Come back to the land of the living. Let us in on the secret.”

  “Secret?”

  “What the drama stylings are all about.”

  Kyoga looked around like he was suspicious about finding himself with all of us.

  “What was that all about?”

  “You didn’t get it? You really didn’t feel it? Tara Chayne . . . Didn’t you have a thing with my father when you were Feder’s age? About the time when you were involved in your own Tournament of Swords?”

  This was the first I’d heard about that. She denied it. “That was Mariska. She’s had round heels since she was twelve . . . Oh. Oh my God!” Her eyes grew improbably huge, or so it seemed because normally she tended to squint. “No way! That’s just plain freaking impossible! Meyness died in the Cantard!”

  Dr. Ted looked as lost as I felt. Barate and Bonegrinder looked stricken numb, and, watching from outside the doorway, Mashego definitely looked bewildered.

  “You’re right.” Tara Chayne shuddered dramatically. “It was him! It is him! Why didn’t I see that?”

  “Maybe because he’s forty-some years older and everybody knows he’s napping six feet down a thousand miles away from here?”

  Tara Chayne went on working it out for herself. “They never sent a body back, but we all knew he was dead! And yeah, he is an old man now. And a priest. But the wen . . . Gross. It should have made me think. But back then it wasn’t much more than a birthmark and he kept it covered with his hair or a hat.”

  All right. I saw the shocker now. We all did. Our pal Magister Bezma could be Kyoga’s missing papa, Meyness Bismar Stornes.

  Bonegrinder blurted, “The priest who warned you off the tournament because he has Mariska . . . He’s Meyness?”

  Kyoga launched the perfectly reasonable and critical question, “If that priest really is my dad . . . why the hell hasn’t he been in touch?”

  Moonblight assured him, “We’ll ask him about that, Kyoga.” She went silent. We all did. Constance made some kind of weird noise. It might have been her stomach commenting. Moonblight moved to where she could stare down at Shadowslinger, thoughtfully. “I wonder . . . No. Can’t worry about that now. Let’s go get my sister. That would be the biggest inconvenience we could offer the Operators.” She shoved through the crowd. “Garrett. Come on. Who else is with us?”

  Everybody, initially. Even Dr. Ted, after tarrying to instruct Mash and Bash, both of whom had collected in the hallway outside Constance’s bedroom.

  73

  When we left Shadowslinger’s hovel, we hustled straight to Moonblight’s place. She wanted to pick up some tools that might come in handy if we ran into supernatural trouble.

  That took only a minute, but during that minute Kyoga and Bonegrinder had a change of heart and deserted us. I’m not sure why. A second minute went to Tara Chayne giving Denvers special instructions. Then it was a quick trek southeast, Dollar Dan leading, essentially reversing the route we would have taken had we come straight from Chattaree to the Machtkess house. The place where Moonslight was supposed to be was barely five blocks from Prince Guelfo Square and the home of Frenklejean’s porkly magic. The area featured masonry operations and those who prepared the brick and stone that masons used. Too, there was a place that produced tombstones and one that burned specialty cements for mortars. The neighborhood had a distinctive odor after a productive day. In among the shops and storage buildings and manufactories were the homes of the owners and a few tenements that offered housing for workers. It was a glum and dusty neighborhood on the best of days.

  It was late enough that most places had shut down for the day. Dusk threatened. A glance skyward left me suspecting that we would be getting wet again soon.

  Dollar Dan’s arrival spontaneously generated rat men. He and they chatted. They were nervous because of the human crowd. They were awed, too, because Dan could hang with notable humans and Pular Singe, too. They were afraid to get close to Singe. She was next to royalty among ratkind. She should not be troubled by peasants.

  I had no difficulty considering her royalty. There never was a rat person like her. Only John Stretch came close. She was a celebrity. She was a heroine. She might become a saint.

  She was a huge source of pride to all ratkind and better known there than her dim-candle sidekick, me.

  She had no brief for what of that attitude she did notice, which she blamed entirely on Dollar Dan.

  Dan came over. “They are getting ready to move the woman. They have been doing that, off and on, all afternoon.” He raised a paw. Moonblight wanted to launch an immediate sortie. “Patience, please. Hear me out first. Orders for the move came hours ago. Then those orders were countermanded. Then, just a while ago, someone angry rolled in wanting to know why the move had not been made, apparently because Moonslight’s keepers are supposed to be able to anticipate their boss’s desires.”

  I have worked for bosses like that.

  My jaw hung. It wasn’t alone. Singe rasped, “Who are you, Poindexter, and what did you do with my Dollar Dan Justice?”

  Dan lapsed into drooling idiocy instantly. Pular Singe had praised him. She had called him “her” Dollar Dan Justice.

  He got over it fast. He was back to business in seconds, describing the inside and outside layouts of Mariska’s “prison.”

  Barate whispered, “Did they just roll in there and map it?” The information was detailed.

  “Some rat people have some amazing talents.” Singe, while unique, was not alone in not being a big lump of dumb with whiskers and ears. Barate had seen it himself, back when, but I chose not to remind him that some rat men can commune with their unmodified cousins and use them as scouts. That shouldn’t get spread around, especially on the Hill.

  An intelligence resource like that would be massively useful to any villain. And I’d bet that the possibilitie
s hadn’t gotten past Singe or John Stretch. They probably had plans for dealing with the evilly ambitious.

  I asked Dan, “Have they scoped out the tactical situation?”

  Again Dan failed to commit to stereotype. “They have a plan and an alternative plan, in shock-and-awe style.”

  He produced a map, crudely drawn on ragged-ass scrap paper. The lighting left something to be desired, but the damned map worked.

  I said, “One change, I think. Instead of taking the risks that come with a break-in, why not let them come to us? The only way out, if they want to sneak, is through the storage lot to the alley. Which would be perfect for an ambush. Right?”

  Dan said, “Let me talk to Mud.”

  Ted whispered, “Why wait? Why not just blast in from three directions? They couldn’t handle that.”

  “Coordination problems. Somebody would go early. Somebody else would go late because they didn’t hear anybody else moving. And the baddies would be ready because somebody would make noise and give the whole thing away. Plus, we could end up fighting each other in the dark.”

  Dan came back. “Mud Man says you are a genius, Garrett.”

  Singe said, “Which shows you how well Mud Man knows him.”

  I said, “Well, of course I am. My mom always told me so.”

  Actually, she was talking about Mikey when she said that. Me she told, over and over, that I would end up in the gutter unless I made at least a half-ass effort to live up to my potential.

  Oh, sigh. The past is never as shining as we like to remember. And it never turns us loose.

  Whispers ran among the rat men. There was a stress-out squeak from Tara Chayne as regular rats of unusual size scrambled around among us. So. The little scampers made the dread Moonblight nervous.

  Dan said, “They’re about to move out, exactly the way you guessed. We need to be ready.”

  74

  Four people accompanied Mariska Machtkess, surrounding her in a loose rectangle. Front left and right rear were gray rat men of the sort we’d seen earlier. Neither Dollar Dan nor Mud Man had mentioned their presence.

  Deliberately? Probably. But it didn’t matter much.

  Moonslight didn’t look like she was under duress. She was talking steadily, too softly to hear but obviously deeply unhappy. I wished I had my magic ear back. Be interesting to know why she was feeling blue.

  We should know soon enough. I meant to drag her straight to Macunado Street.

  I gave the ever-so-clever signal: “Get them!”

  Pounce! And multipounce! The bad boys got neutralized before they understood that they were being hit. Likewise, and especially, Moonslight. She, for one breath, looked like she meant to resist, then lapsed into a resigned “this is too good to be true” attitude.

  “Tara Chayne. You’re getting sly in your old age. I never felt a thing. And you my twin.” Dramatic sigh. “I’d given up on you.”

  Moonblight replied, “You were always covered. My rat man friends were there all the time. You seemed safe enough. But when things started happening elsewhere, I decided to get you back.”

  Last light was almost gone. It was hard to tell, but I thought Moonslight looked a little gray.

  I exchanged glances with Singe. We definitely had to fix her up with the Dead Man.

  Singe’s eyes widened. I spun to see why.

  The light was awful. Flecks of rain had begun to fall. Even so, there was no mistaking the little blonde atop the cement maker’s shed.

  Singe stepped close, grabbed my left arm with both hands. She had a sudden case of the sniffles. She got up on tiptoe to whisper, “We are no longer alone.”

  Brevet Captain Deiter Scithe stepped on her line. “So, what is this all about, Garrett?”

  He had not turned up alone. Shadows moved all round, closing in.

  I had to get rid of that Civil Guard tracer.

  “Don’t you ever stop working?” No point mentioning that I didn’t find it useful to have the Civil Guard in my hip pocket all the time. He would refuse to be convinced.

  “They won’t let me stop while you keep getting into mischief. Guess who my wife hates more than her mother-in-law?”

  “Somebody kidnapped Moonblight’s sister. Singe’s connections helped us find her. We came to get her back.”

  “I’m beginning to understand why the Director and General Block get hysterical about you. That feels like it’s true but smells like it’s only a fraction of the truth. That’s work that should be left to the Guard. It should have been reported when it happened.”

  I shrugged. “You’re another one with serious trust issues.”

  “Well, duh. You have an interesting mix here.”

  I thought he meant my companions, and maybe he did, some, but he was staring at the baddies when he said it.

  “Yeah. You hardly ever see gray rat men working with another race.”

  “As you say. My bosses will be interested in that.”

  I concentrated on self-control. This was where being the usual me might earn me a difficult row to hoe later on.

  Scithe said, “Here’s a thought. The Director won’t like it, but I am the senior on the scene, with full situational discretion. And, honestly, you and your friends did all the work. It would be less than fair to confiscate your whole harvest, however much I have the law and courts behind me.”

  I put my hands over the seat of my pants. Somebody was about to get bent over.

  It took me a moment to realize that Scithe was messing with me. He was wasting time deliberately. He suggested, “Let’s split the haul. You take a rat and a thug, I’ll take a rat and a thug.”

  “Works for me.”

  Brownie took a stance in front of Scithe, bared her teeth, growled a growl that made her sound more exasperated than threatening.

  Scithe grinned. “Ferocious sidekick, Garrett. Going to pee my pants leg, girl?”

  “You never know,” I said. “She has character.”

  Clever, clever, ever-slick Tara Chayne Machtkess used the distraction to ease Mariska away from the Brevet Captain. Mariska did nothing to make that difficult. She was disinclined to head into durance in a place unlikely to be hospitable. Denizens of the Al-Khar had been born again into the faith of the law. She preferred traditional privilege.

  One or both sisters did something intended to make themselves less notable.

  Scithe was not fooled. “Miss Machtkess, ma’am, I understand that you want to share an emotional reunion after a successful rescue. But your sister should come see us at the Al-Khar as soon as she can so we can collect information about the scofflaws involved.” He winked at me. “That will give you time to get your stories straight.”

  He didn’t quite mean what he said. He was, actually, counting on the Dead Man’s superior interrogation techniques.

  He winked again as a rogue raindrop the size of a robin’s egg smacked him square in the third eye.

  He yelped. “Steng, Split, snag that one and that one and let’s go. Maybe I can get my supper before midnight.”

  Brownie growled again. So did her henchmutts. This time, though, she didn’t care about Deiter Scithe. The dogs all glared at the cement maker’s heating tower, where the little blonde’s good buddy stood silhouetted against what little gray light remained. He stepped off the back side and vanished.

  Tara Chayne asked, “What was that?”

  “I’m really starting to wonder why that girl turns up whenever my life gets interesting.”

  “Does she? Every time?”

  I shrugged. Maybe not. “Well, no. Frequently.” There had been times that I hadn’t seen her. But that was all that meant. She might have been watching. “I’m just really wondering why.”

  “Let’s take sis to dinner at your place.”

  “That’s a great idea.”

  75

  I wasn’t totally gone in the wastelands of my own thoughts—years of being the butt of practical jokers who scheme beneath the seat of the three-holer in t
he sky guaranteed that we would see an ambush before we got to my house—but I was nibbling round the crust of a slice of curiosity. What should we do with our captives once the Dead Man was done burglarizing their brains?

  We must have them stacked in like cordwood by now.

  Tara Chayne could do whatever she wanted with her sister once we were done with her. Maybe the Guard could pass the rest along to the labor camps.

  Barate smacked us hard with the obvious. “It’s dark.” He had helped himself to some lumber from the storage lot, a broken piece of form board. He swished it around like a practice sword.

  I protested, “I’m alert.”

  Singe and her big stick were more ready than I was.

  The dogs were close in and halfway slinking, expecting trouble.

  “There was that ugliness with the Hedley-Farfoul twins last night. That must have been the first official clash of the tournament. Right?”

  “So I understand.” I looked around nervously. “You’re getting at something specific?” We did not have the street to ourselves. There was civilian traffic and plenty of movement rolling with us. Tara Chayne, though, didn’t seem particularly uneasy, so I assumed that movement must be friendly. Nominally. Like Specials hoping our honey would draw more flies. Honey, I say! Not horse puckey. Not any kind of puckey, horse, chicken, or bull.

  In the outbacks of my mind, a puckish imaginary being ticked the box next to Bull, Commercial Grade.

  Barate said, “We should consider the likelihood that there will be more action tonight. Possibly several incidents, all extremely violent.”

  “Yeah.”

  Things were moving faster than we or the Operators liked.

  “You should, then, be more concerned than you have been showing.”

  “Eh?”

  “As far as we know, you’re still Mortal Companion to Kevans’s Family Champion. The Mortal Companion should be close enough to support the Family Champion, especially when the Dread Companion isn’t around. Do you know where Kevans is?”

  Oh. No. I did not, not in the least. I couldn’t think of anything to say and Barate was a worried dad snakebitten already by a nasty loss. “We should work on that once we get these villains delivered.” I unlaxed even more, and upped the pace.