Faded Steel Heat gf-9

by Glen Cook

  I gave North English the fish-eye myself. That was exactly the sort of stuff a guy like him would pull. But he called down, "That's not true. I told the Brotherhood to disband because I wanted it disbanded. I agreed with Theverly. They wouldn't be managed. Obviously, time has sustained the wisdom of our decision." Nevertheless, he remained shifty-eyed and kept his face averted from the stormwarden.

  The man in chains didn't buy North English's protests. "We got orders from you every day. The last couple of months you've sent word three or four times a day. It got to where you were practically controlling every breath we took."

  The man believed what he said. I didn't doubt that a bit.

  The Wolf had said, "... sent word... " And it hadn't been that long since I'd mentioned the changers' talent for telling Karentines exactly what they wanted to hear. This Wolf had been fed a story exactly suited to his emotional need.

  North English looked baffled. Maybe he believed what he said, too.

  The Wolf plowed on, "The Call was going broke. They wanted to get ahold of a lot of wealth fast. Two, two and a half weeks ago, not long after we started working with Black Dragon, we got word that the Weider brewing empire would be taken over. We'd worked on that project for a long time. Just in case. The Dragons tried to recruit brewery workers in our name. That was hard for us; you kept us tied up in meetings all the time." The man's conviction began to waver in the face of North English's steadfast headshaking. North English was getting angry enough to ignore the presence of the sorcerer.

  Marengo said, "I haven't spoken to you three times in the last year, fellow."

  "You couldn't, could you? Colonel Theverly would throw one of his tantrums. You—"

  Pular Singe squealed. Saucerhead Tharpe bellowed. Playmate boomed something. Sarge roared. The Goddamn Parrot shrieked. A sorcerous voice whispered "Beware!" in my ear just as Look Out! rumbled inside my head. A woody crash came from the direction of the dining room. Shrieks followed that. Something was headed my way.

  That something was a whirlwind of horror that looked like a troll with a bad case of the uglies. It had claws like scimitars. It had fangs like a saber-tithed tooger, top and bottom. It was preceded by breath foul enough to gag a maggot. It bulled straight toward me. Bodies flew and people screamed.

  There wasn't a hero in the place. Whatever direction the thing looked it saw flying heels. My first impulse was to show it one more pair. So was my second. I listened to that one.

  "Down!" said the little voice in my ear. Down! insisted the big voice inside my head. I'm a bright boy. I can take a hint. I flung myself down and clung to cold stone like the gods had announced that they were going to do away with gravity.

  Came a sound like somebody slapping a brick wall with the flat side of a big wet board. The sound of big bacon frying followed instantly. The ugly apparition shrieked louder than all the shrieking around it put together. It collapsed upon itself, passing through repeated twisting changes before it assumed the shape like those in the Lamp ruin tanks.

  A huge, sourceless voice filled the hall. "Stand back. It's stunned, not dead." The thing began to assume human shape. Evidently young shifters adopt some base form to which they'll revert automatically if they can't maintain a shape they've chosen.

  The shifters bound in chains made unhappy noises. Their despair was so strong I felt it—maybe because I'd been exposed to the Dead Man for so long.

  Stunned didn't last. An arm grew to an impossible length. One incredibly nasty, sicklelike claw tipped it. That claw slashed at me. I was just fast enough to dodge or the shifter was just slow enough to miss.

  A waterlogged blanket slapped a stone floor. Big bacon crackled. The shifter leapt into the air, shrieked, then flopped around like its back was broken. I told Morley, "I think I'll back off a ways."

  "Clever fellow. Sign me on as your assistant."

  I noted that he wasn't watching the shifter. "Whatcha looking for?"

  "Just keeping an eye out." He used his "I've got an idea but I'm not ready to talk about it" tone. I looked around, too.

  Block and Relway were busy making sure men kept guarding every entrance. I looked up at Tinnie and the girls. They hadn't fled. But they had let Marengo get away again. Two large gentlemen from the shipping dock had joined the ladies. Max, Manvil, and Ty now formed a glowering knot at the foot of the grand staircase, evidently concerned that my new playmate might develop a taste for toothsome wench. A taste I can't say I begrudge almost anyone.

  I limped over to Genord. I'd banged my hip good getting down onto the floor. "Here we go again. Want to tell me anything now?"

  Gerris still wasn't talking.

  "Live a fool, die a fool—Now what?"

  Another racket from the kitchen, that's what. Neersa Bintor was very upset about something. Had Singe?... No, Singe was there by the dining-room door, just steps away from Relway, shaking like a last autumn leaf, looking at me, in a stance that begged forgiveness for failing to expose the changer in time.

  Still looking around, Morley asked, "You want some bad news?"

  "No. I'd cherish some good news, though. Just for the novelty. What?"

  "Crask and Sadler went missing during that excitement."

  Gah! "You're shitting me."

  Sure enough, their fetters were empty. How the hell?... They'd been out of the way and everybody had been distracted, but... I stormed toward Relway. "You want to tell me how Crask and Sadler could do a disappearing act in the middle of a hundred people?"

  "What? They couldn't. I' ve got the only key... " A twisted hand came out of a pocket empty. "Hunh?" He was flabbergasted. It's a memory I'll cherish. Relway is seldom at a loss. "Somebody picked my pocket." He started growling at his own people, forgetting, for the moment, that he didn't want to reveal himself.

  I went to Pular Singe, told her, "You did just fine. You couldn't be everywhere at once. Once the shifters understood that you could identify them they just stayed out of your way. Are you all right? You think you can work? I might need you to track those bad men again."

  "Never mind the bad men," Morley said from behind me. "She turned them loose strictly for their diversion value."

  Slap and bacon crackle happened again. People who should've been concentrating on that last shifter had let themselves be distracted by trying to keep track of me. That changer was off the floor again. It lurched toward its brethren, sprouting scissorlike claws capable of snipping silver. It seemed to be developing an immunity to the stormwarden's sorcery. A double application was needed to put it down this time.

  "Someone would have to know me pretty good to think I'd drop everything if they... " Of course. Somebody who controlled the resources of Brotherhood Of The Wolf and Black Dragon Valsung could find out all about me. Somebody who'd had me dogged since before I knew I was getting into this mess. Somebody who... Who? I could look around me and see everybody involved in the case except Crask and Sadler. But they were pawns. Of the rest only Marengo remotely fit. Like the lead Wolf said.

  North English might be one hell of an actor. But he had been behaving strangely ever since he'd gotten hurt. A fact which left me squinty-eyed with suspicion.

  104

  Wait! What about the redoubtable Lieutenant Nagit? Mr. Nagit was an excellent candidate. He probably felt underappreciated... Then I recalled something he'd said. Something I hadn't taken the trouble to hear at the time.

  An evil globule of bright feathers hit my shoulder hard. "Goddammit!... "

  "Do not be willfully stupid, Garrett. Do not be willfully blind."

  People stared. Only Morley Dotes grasped the full significance right away. He turned, stared at the settling tank briefly, said, "You're one sneaky bastard, Garrett." He showed about a hundred pointy teeth in a grin. "I've taught you well, my disciple."

  I ignored him. I told the bird, "No. I'm not being blind on purpose. I really just got it. Block! Colonel Block." He was close enough that I didn't really need to yell. "Find the woman. The mistress. Mon
tezuma. It's her that ties everything together." Stupid, Garrett. Stupid. It was right there in front of you all the time. But she was gorgeous so you just didn't think she could be anything else. If she'd gotten lucky with you, you might have ended up as thick as Gerris Genord. Or well nicked by a meat cleaver.

  How did she know Crask and Sadler? From her old days, before she got her hooks into Marengo?

  We didn't know much about her. Nobody bothered to find out, no matter what we'd discussed. Why back-check a whore, however remarkable she might be?

  She might have grown up with the nightmare twins.

  Above, Marengo had found nerve enough to show himself. His mouth was open but nothing came out.

  Mr. Nagit had told me the woman never did anything that didn't relate to her meal ticket. That explained why she had hooked up with Marengo in the first place. It explained why she'd work all the angles against the day Marengo lost interest. She'd started that as soon as she'd arrived at The Pipes, already old enough and wise enough to know that the ride couldn't possibly last.

  Tama Montezuma would be one more reason Marengo North English couldn't finance his bigoted revolution. Tama would have found a hundred ways to suck herself a comfortable retirement out of Marengo's and The Call's cash flows.

  It was amazing what vistas opened once I embraced the possibility that the luscious Miss Montezuma might be a villain. The probability of a connection with Glory Mooncalled laid itself out as though announced by trumpeters. I already believed that Mooncalled was behind the shapeshifters somewhere. I had hoped tonight's festivities would somehow lure him to the Weider mansion, too, probably in deep disguise. But no disguise would help as long as he came within a hundred feet of that settling tank.

  Mooncalled would've gotten his claws into Tama the instant the Brotherhood Of The Wolf included Black Dragon Valsung in their plans. How she'd manipulated the Wolves was clear enough, based on the testimony of our witnesses. She'd pretended to be Marengo's go-between. Which the Wolf acknowledged when asked directly.

  Tama wanted to be rich. She had only one thing to sell. The shifters wanted a brewery. They had nothing to market but their talent for infiltration. Glory Mooncalled wanted... what? Where Mooncalled came from and where he was going never had been clear. Even my partner, who made a hobby of studying the man, no longer understood what he was about. And the rest of the world knew only that Mooncalled traveled his own road and was a real pain in the ass about letting himself get pushed off of it.

  The vistas stretched but I still had questions. Lots of questions. How did Tama get them to attack Marengo that night? Why try to eliminate all the main leaders of the rights movement? Or was that all staging? Where was Glory Mooncalled now? Why hadn't I pulled him in? Because of Perilous Spite? Or had he sensed the trap? And where was Tama Montezuma? Had she worked her magic on Mooncalled? That would be a real marvel, those two getting all tangled up in each other.

  And: Where were Crask and Sadler?

  The noise volume rose as everybody decided to do something. They teach that in leadership school. Do something, even if it's wrong. Karenta might have been a lot better off for a little more inertia in recent decades.

  I have to confess some admiration and sympathy for Tama. She might not have lost me if people hadn't died. I understood what moved her. But she was too selfish and too sloppy.

  All the despair now haunting the Weider mansion could be laid directly at her feet.

  Mooncalled is in the area, Garrett , said the voice inside my head. He is upset. I sense that he had plans for tonight, too, but nothing has gone his way. There may be trouble.

  We didn't have trouble already?

  "Let's don't just stand around, Garrett," Block said. "We've got people on the run."

  Morley chuckled. "I don't think anybody will get very far. Right, Garrett?"

  "I'm not that optimistic, old buddy. Something will go wrong. It always does. Singe!" I couldn't mention Mooncalled. That would spark too many questions. I waved but Pular Singe didn't have courage enough to risk the center of the floor. Which wasn't a good idea, anyway. Almost everybody not in chains was now headed somewhere else in a hurry, many with their eyes closed in fear or in sheer determination not to become a witness to anything.

  The gang from Heaven's Gate, however, remained preoccupied with their personal hobbies so didn't contribute to the general uproar. Trail and Storey remained determined to tap the settling tank. They wouldn't enjoy that particular vintage if they succeeded, though. It was particularly bitter, well beyond skunky. I headed that way. "Will you two leave that damned tank alone?" Shale, at least, had had the grace to pass out. Or just fall asleep. "There's all the goddamn beer you can possibly suck down over there by Quipo. Miss Trim! You're supposed to keep these antique idiots under control." But Quipo had reached a point where she was having trouble managing herself.

  "Garrett. Heard 'bout you from your fren'. Winger." Quipo was speaking fluent drunkenese. "Where'd she go? Winger. Where'd-jou go?"

  "Garrett." Max wanted me.

  "What?"

  "Must these people destroy my home?"

  "Block!" I bellowed. "North English! Get your people under control!" Speaking of control, bigger trouble was on its way. Nobody was managing the shifters, especially that last one. It still wasn't yet properly shackled in silver.

  The stormwarden descended into the chaos. He went among the handful of shapeshifters like a Venageti triage sorcerer, specialists who had used their talents to decide which wounded should go to the surgeons and which should be put out of their misery. Those guys hadn't saved many Karentines.

  This guy ended two lives just like that, suddenly, viley, noisily. Shifters never went easily, it seemed.

  The survivors evidently tendered an offer of submission. The stormwarden's golden buttboys got them up and moving. They went docilely, chains tinkling. I wondered what would happen if the sorcerer turned his back. I asked Max, "You want I should do something about that?"

  "What?" Weider demanded.

  "It's your house." I kept my outrage well hidden. Karentines learn to do that when our lords from the Hill are out. People who won't control their emotions will suffer severe humiliations—at the least.

  "Let him have them. They deserve him. Tell Marengo to shut up and get his ass down here. He's been acting like a fool."

  North English was harassing his own people from the balcony, apparently convinced that by yelling insults he could make them catch Tama sooner. I didn't yield to my urge to give him a swift kick. Nor would I give in to my inclination to let Tama get away.

  While I got North English rounded up so Max could calm him down Morley assembled his friends and mine. He beckoned me. "You've got to get Singe on Montezuma's trail, Garrett. If she gets a big lead, we'll never catch her. She was ready for this."

  "Why do you care?"

  "Ooh, he's thick," Winger observed. "Dumb as a stump, we'd say back home." She had a strong beer flavor even from six feet away.

  "I've got a notion I don't want an explanation if you're interested in it." I noted the not-yet-departed stormwarden watching us from near the front door. I shivered.

  Morley said, "Garrett, even Saucerhead figured out that Montezuma has to have a cash stash. Possibly a very large one. She's been milking North English for several years."

  "Oh." Exactly what I'd expect of the whole gang, barring Playmate and—maybe—Pular Singe. Hustle out there and disappear the stolen riches before the rightful owner could reclaim them. Then look innocent. I'd seen Morley do it before. The problem was, Winger was the sort of accomplice who wouldn't have enough sense not to start spending like a sailor before the sun came up. Dumb luck and brute strength keep that girl alive.

  I don't think Saucerhead understood that. Someday he'll be genuinely unhappy about letting her talk him into things.

  I glanced up at Marengo. He still didn't want to mix with us peasants on the main floor. All right. Go, Tama. I didn't mind him losing his money. And him
being broke wouldn't hurt Max. Or any of those gorgeous ladies up there. In fact, it'd be a better world if Marengo North English couldn't afford to be a shithead. "What do you think, latrine-beak?" I asked my shoulder ornament.

  The Goddamn Parrot was out of words again. Which was just as well. He'd given too many people too much to think about already.

  I had a few of my own left, though. "Crask and Sadler are out there somewhere."

  Morley replied, "Your pal the secret policeman can handle them. If he hasn't caught them already."

  Relway had vanished while I was blinking. Many of his people were missing as well. I asked Singe, "You want to be part of this?"

  "Double share," Dotes offered generously, which made Winger sputter. "You wouldn't have to kowtow to Reliance anymore." He knew his ratfolk. Or this ratgirl, anyway. But this ratgirl was smart enough to know when somebody was blowing fairy dust, too. She did a credible job of lifting an eyebrow when she looked to me for my opinion. A double share of what, Garrett?

  I said, "I can't go. I've got work to do here. You guys catch her, you bring her back to me." I tried warning them with sudden shifts of my eyes toward the sorcerer. But the fire of the hunt was upon them.

  "Winger, stuff it. Bring her back here. I know it sounds improbable but there're issues in this world as important as your greed."

  "Ohh!" Saucerhead purred. "Listen to the man growl. Shut up, Winger. He's probably right."

  "Be careful," I told Singe and she understood that I meant she shouldn't ever trust her present companions completely.

  Their expedition never hit the street.

  Garrett. Beware. We are about to enjoy a badly misjudged and mistimed rescue effort.

  "A what?"

  A racket broke out up front. A centaur galloped in through the front door, a javelin in each hand. It bowled over the stormwarden's glitzy henchmen while seeming utterly amazed to find them there. Another minute and the collision would have taken place outside. The stormwarden had just given up staring at me suspiciously.