Wicked Bronze Ambition

by Glen Cook

  I consulted my recollections. “She and her friend supposedly have hideouts on top of several buildings.”

  “That may be, yes. Such places have been found but may not in fact be actual hideouts.”

  He sounded close to plaintive, which confused me. He tried to explain. “She leaves no scents behind. Not the right scents. Except for possibly . . . She is a ghost, Mr. Garrett.”

  Perhaps. Maybe. But she’d been one solid spook that one time I got close enough to touch her.

  My turn to plaint. “That could mean she’s not part of the tournament.” The Operators wouldn’t put ghosts on the player roster. Spooks and zombies wouldn’t work because of the unfair advantage factor.

  So I started trying to recall every detail about the girl and her companion. Especially her companion.

  Dollar Dan was not happy. He had handed me the solution to the mystery of the vanishing artillery piece, opening a pony keg of worms, and I was just getting infatuated with a little twist not yet ripe enough to split. . . .

  I hustled back from way out there in the wanderlands, focused on Dan, mildly aghast. Had I tapped into his secret thoughts? Or was I daydreaming something offensive because of my own obscure prejudice?

  Whatever, I felt creepy and creeped out.

  “What are we doing?” Morley asked. “Besides standing in one place long enough for trouble to find us? That wasn’t happy news, but how does it change what we’re doing now?”

  “You’re right. Dan did everything that could be already. Chasing Race and Dex down would just eat time better spent finding Vicious Min.” So there I committed to checking on her before seeing Trivias Smith.

  “What?” Morley demanded. He and Dollar Dan eyeballed me like I’d just turned weird. Meaning I’d hidden it damned well before.

  “Thinking about Vicious Min. Thinking about the little blonde’s sidekick. Wondering. There are differences but big similarities, too. They could be related. The variances could be simple sex differences. Like, who would believe that Strafa and I were the same species?”

  “You have a profound point. She was an angel. You . . . You’re . . . You’re Garrett.”

  Dan probably agreed but was too civilized to say so.

  I confessed, “I always suspected that the weaseling romance gods laid Strafa on me because they wanted me to become the punch line to the universe’s saddest shaggy dog story.”

  “Shaggy dog stories don’t have punch lines. They end with a whimper. Or a groan.”

  “Bing! And we have a grand prize winner, folks.”

  “That’s my pal Garrett, eternal optimist, everybody. Mr. Sunshine himself.”

  Somehow the possibility of a connection between Vicious Min and the blonde’s sidekick troubled me more than did questions raised by discovery of the ballista in the basement.

  We did get moving again before divine mischief brought us to grief.

  I relaxed some, actually, certain that the baddies had squandered their resources for mayhem and would now be especially short, Mariska having stepped back, depriving her boyfriend of any Machtkess connection with the grays.

  I was convinced that the Machtkess history explained the gray involvement.

  I hoped Moonslight had not destroyed a whole people with her bad behavior.

  Grown people will amaze you with childish stupid sometimes.

  99

  No plan survives contact with the enemy. That is common wisdom, becoming a storyteller’s cliché. It is the iron law encountered by every commander headed into action. It could be called Garrett’s First Law of Investigative Dynamics, too.

  Nothing goes according to plan.

  We doughty adventurers, and our tails, passed the Al-Khar en route to look for Vicious Min. I had no intention of visiting. I had no intention of consulting anyone there, nor of being noticed by its denizens. Either Womble and/or Muriat rejected my script.

  Maybe I should have gone a longer way.

  Whatever, my crowd suddenly expanded to include Brevet Captain Deiter Scithe, Target, and a vigorously limping Helenia, who looked like there was nothing she’d love more than to take a big, steaming dump on the altar of Fortune, she was so happy to be out in the weather with me. The dogs, though, greeted her cheerfully and begged for treats she didn’t have, which softened her mood from diamond to ice.

  “There you are,” I said. “But why?”

  Scithe said, “Prince Rupert came to see the General and the Director. He wants the business involving your wife solved and wrapped.”

  “Why? It’s none of his business.”

  “It’s all his business, Garrett, and not just because she was a family friend. He’s the Royal responsible for ‘Public Safety.’ Right now that means he has to please the Hill, where people are outraged. He hopes to score political points, too.”

  Which made sense of a sleazy sort. Prince Rupert would be our next king, maybe not long from now. He wasn’t keen on that, but he was realistic. Whatever skin he had pinched in the crimes and facts of the tournament, he had to bow to political considerations. Karentine princes who ignore politics always suffer brief, miserable reigns once they take the throne.

  I didn’t like it, but that was the way it was. A weasel Rupert might be, but he should be the best king we had during my lifetime. He had a knack for seeing snippets of realities outside the neverlands of his palaces.

  “He also wants to see you about making you his personal investigative agent. Again.”

  “I have other stuff to do.” The brewery. Amalgamated. Revenge for what happened to Strafa. Avoiding the bitter insanity of Karentine politics.

  “He’s willing to work with you on your concerns. He says you wouldn’t have to give up your normal life.”

  “You smell that? It’s piled so high a tall troll would drown in it.”

  “Garrett, you’re being willfully difficult.”

  Helenia surreptitiously checked a waterlogged list, ready to prompt Scithe if he overlooked a talking point. Number Two was curious about that, probably hoping it was a treat that Helenia would give up eventually.

  Scithe noted, “You spend ninety percent of your life doing nothing productive. He’s only interested in buying a fraction of that.”

  Morley chuckled but eschewed going after the deeper dig.

  “To start. That’s what he’d say. But how long before he claimed he owned me body and soul, day and night, till he used me up or got me killed?” I stopped. No point working up a lather. Scithe was carrying out instructions, by the numbers, with just enough enthusiasm to get by.

  He concluded, “Just come by the Al-Khar and talk.”

  “Some other time. Maybe after I’ve settled this business.” Strafa’s face came to me, sweetly supportive. Could I get to the cemetery today? The afternoon was getting on.

  Helenia crumpled her list. The ink had run. Anything they had missed was gone. She was ready to get the hell gone herself, somewhere safe and out of this crappy weather.

  Number Two was deeply disappointed.

  Scithe had a point or two left but decided, screw it. “It might be a sweet gig, Garrett.”

  “You could be right. Volunteer for it yourself.”

  “I did. But he’s got Garrett, Furious Tide of Light, Shadowslinger, and the Algarda clan on the brain. See him. He’ll put up with you turning him down, but there’s no way he’ll take you disrespecting him by ignoring him.”

  A point worth remembering. Prince Rupert would be king. New kings close out old accounts.

  Morley put that into words as we watched Scithe, Helenia, and Target head for the yellow rock pile. Target hadn’t spoken the whole time.

  “I know. You’re right. I don’t need Rupert laying for me for the rest of my life.”

  “My little boy is starting to grow up.”

  “Blame that on Strafa.” I watched the red tops till they disappeared, wondering what had become of Womble and Muriat. “Let’s get on with getting on.” Later, I asked, “What’s with you and
Belinda?”

  “We’re two people desperately trying to make something work with somebody crazier than we are.” Which ended the discussion.

  I hoped their thing didn’t turn darkly bad. Both were my friends. And both were dangerous and disinclined, in heated moments, to demonstrate outstanding emotional restraint.

  100

  “That would appear to be the place,” Morley said, less fiercely than you would expect of someone who had just discovered the base of a long-sought and troublesome adversary.

  Mud Man and crew were not to be seen. Dollar Dan, still tagging along, was worried. The mutts smelled something to make them nervous, too.

  Adversary? Did we have that kind of relationship with Min?

  I didn’t think so.

  I shared Morley’s mood. The trouble in troublesome felt likely to shift and make for challenging footing.

  This Vicious Min hole-up was sadder than the last. It was a literal hole in a wall, the sort of place an outcast, later to become known as Vicious Min, might have spent a grimly impoverished childhood.

  The hole had been hollowed out of the downhill-side foundation of an enormous windmill crowning a rock upthrust that rose twenty feet above street level on that side. The mill no longer worked but did have strong wards against the usual threats of thievery, scavengers, and squatters. You could smell the sorcery like garlic in a century-old tenement. The air crackled, but the protective spells didn’t reach down to the foundation on this side. Someone had figured that out and had removed blocks of stone one by one to create a man-made cave underneath the mill.

  This was Beifhold’s Mill, a notorious landmark from the last century. It had the protection of the Crown and city because it was unique and storied but not enough so that anyone wanted to invest in upkeep. The last maintenance I recalled was a whitewashing the year before Mom passed away. Nothing else had gotten done since the last Beifhold died in the Cantard.

  The cave entrance didn’t look big enough to pass someone Min’s size, which might explain her need for that other place, which she hadn’t shared. She did not appear to be around now, but someone was sitting outside, bent over his lap in the rain, unconscious or sleeping. He could be Min’s little brother—though he still went twice as bigger than me. The dogs didn’t like him. They showed a lot of teeth, for no obvious reason.

  Morley opined, “It looks like a whole family lives there.”

  “Sad, huh? Maybe that’s deeper than it looks.”

  “Yes. And yes, it is about as sad as I can imagine anything being.”

  I said, “I see why Min would get into something sketchy.”

  “The price of keeping body and soul and family together.”

  “Um. But I won’t forgive her. However much I understand. Is that creature even alive?” I checked to see what Preston Womble and his henchwoman were doing. Whatever that might be, I didn’t catch them doing it. They had become invisible. We hadn’t caught a whiff of them since the encounter with Scithe. Speaking of which, what had become of Lurking Fehlkse? Even Dollar Dan hadn’t caught wind of him lately.

  At the moment he was sniffing after Mud Man. He said, “The creature is breathing, but it may be damaged or drugged.”

  The character beside the cave mouth was less active than a decorative gargoyle. Not only had he not moved; I couldn’t detect his breathing. Had the Black Orchid gotten here already? Shouldn’t there be more blood?

  “See no evil,” Morley breathed as a woman approached from our left, strolling toward the cave, not obviously interested and in no great hurry. She had acquired an umbrella. She stopped just out of reach of the sleeping giant—using giant loosely, descriptively instead of ethnically—and began speaking too softly to hear. She folded her umbrella as she did.

  Giant Boy didn’t twitch when she poked him.

  Brownie made a snorting noise that I expected to give us away. Orchidia didn’t react. The giant toppled, then slowly relaxed into a half-fetal position, on his right side, still showing no sign of life.

  A chubby raindrop got me on the left cheek despite my waterlogged hat, which drooped around the brim. I glanced up. Behold, there was the blond child sitting on the hub between two sails where they were rooted in the axle that transferred wind energy to the innards of the mill. Just sitting there. Watching.

  Orchidia surely sensed me, Morley, Dan, and the dogs, but she had no clue about the child in the sky. She focused on the unresponsive big boy.

  That was bizarre. I had a hard time keeping my yap shut. Dollar Dan Justice had as hard a time not fussing about the absence of Mud Man.

  Keeping her umbrella aimed at her victim, Orchidia moved to the cave. With her other hand she conjured one of those glow balls beloved of her kind.

  She took a close look at the sleeper, her head sideways to the cave.

  A fist shot out. It clipped her despite a reflex move so fast that master martial artist Morley Dotes gasped in admiration.

  Orchidia staggered a dozen feet, collapsed to one knee. Morley and Dollar Dan both snagged my arms so I wouldn’t go all white knight, but I had no intention of rushing in.

  The big thing who ran with the blonde emerged from the cave supplely as a snake. At that range and in that light, I saw a definite resemblance to Vicious Min.

  He thumped Orchidia again, deftly bound her with cords hanging ready at his belt, gagged her, stuffed her into a big jute gunnysack handed to him by another big thing who emerged from the cave after him, this one old, stooped, arthritic, and one-eyed, with a left leg that had been broken below the knee and never properly set. Old One tossed Sleeping Boy onto a shoulder, started limping. Blondie’s friend tucked his sackful of Black Orchid under his left arm and followed. Neither ever looked our way.

  Morley said, “Let’s don’t ever mix it up with those people.”

  “Not without me bringing my siege engine.” I looked up. Sure enough, Little Bits no longer decorated the windmill hub.

  Dollar Dan said, “I’m on it,” and headed out after the big folks.

  “Be careful,” Morley told him.

  “Let’s see what’s in the cave,” I said.

  “Like maybe another one of those things?”

  “We should look because we came here to look instead of heading straight for the smith’s.”

  “I’ll haunt you forever if something mashes my head in.”

  The hole-up was empty and sad. Min’s people did not live a good life.

  “We know one thing for sure now,” I said, eyeing the squalor. “Neither Min nor that other one qualifies as a Dread Companion.”

  “There’s a blessing. Min was here.” He indicated a bloody rag.

  “I never doubted that. Mud Man followed her here. Dan will probably find her wherever those people go.” I hoped he looked up once in a while. The girl was sure to notice him. “Let’s go see what the smith has to say.” Then maybe I would sneak off to see Strafa.

  “Look here.” He picked up Orchidia’s umbrella, which the big folks hadn’t taken along. “Not all the news is bad.”

  Brownie and the girls seemed to know where we were headed right away. Brownie stuck by me, as always, while the others ranged ahead.

  They didn’t turn up anything. Not a Lurking Fehlkse, a Preston Womble, nor even an Elona Muriat.

  We made the journey quietly. I brooded on what we had learned.

  101

  Trivias Smith visit provided some unwanted physical exercise but not much else. Smith handed me half a dozen tracers smashed by Operators he said were the same pair who had placed the order. One sounded like Magister Bezma in a bad mood. He had called his companion “brother.” Smith wasn’t sure if that meant a relationship or was a title. Did Kyoga have any uncles? I’d have to ask.

  “Brother” hadn’t been happy. He’d done his work, reluctantly, never speaking. He would rather have been elsewhere doing anything else.

  “Probably a religious brother,” I said. “The ugly one with the deformity is a magister from
Chattaree, in a bad temper because his evil scheme is falling apart. His own grandson was killed.”

  “I fear I cannot generate much sympathy.”

  Morley opined, “The fool didn’t just ask for the pain, he begged.”

  I asked Smith some general questions. He didn’t mind answering. Yes, the Guard had been underfoot but hadn’t interfered with business. The villains, after collecting their swords, had headed for Flubber Ducky.

  We chatted briefly, me thinking he might be good to know down the road. Meanwhile, Morley showed a surprising interest in the practical side of smithery. And I thought some more about sneaking off to the family mausoleum.

  The Flubber Ducky boys must have held a strategy session and decided that cooperation would be their least costly policy, going forward. They didn’t hold back. Magister Bezma and his sidekick had roared in, done some damage, then carried off everything having anything to do with their order, complete or not. It all went into a generic little covered wagon drawn by a single ox. They had headed toward the Dream Quarter. And that was that, except that Pindlefix was so bold as to suggest that I should shun Flubber Ducky now and forevermore. That or suffer the burden of a thousand curses.

  Morley observed, “Too bad Singe isn’t with us. She could find those idiots fast. Though that’s maybe too optimistic in this drizzle.”

  That had let up for a time but now looked like it was about to come back. On the upside, we did have Orchidia’s umbrella.

  “I think we know where to find them.”

  “Chattaree?”

  “Where else?”

  “Been a while.”

  “It has. And they’ll be ready this time. Chances are, we’ll be at the tail end of a line.” I reminded him who would be ahead of us, in case he hadn’t been paying attention.

  He said, “This Bezma is one dumb shit. Your Algardas are bad enough to poke a stick in the eye, but the Black Orchid? She’ll be back. Those big things weren’t planning to hurt her. I’ve only ever heard rumors, but I know I don’t want her on my case. She’s like a supernatural force, not just some slick killer.”