by Glen Cook
Another peep into the Algarda family dynamic?
I wanted to pursue his remark about thunder lizard experiments. The Dead Man proved he was with us by nudging me away. He passed me his recollections of an era he had witnessed firsthand.
The Hill folk of the time had done an ingenious job covering up something far more horrible than their ratman experiments, despite a rash of nasty deaths. Letting the ratmen survive had been part of the cover-up, somehow.
I said, ‘‘I’ll catch Felhske and ask why he’s lurking. If I need to know. Look. We’ve been kicking something around. About what the kids stirred up.’’
I retailed the dragon hypothesis.
Amazing. During our entire exchange there hadn’t been one interruption. Kip and Kyra, Winger and the Remora, Tinnie and Singe, the Windwalker and Dean when he appeared with fresh supplies, nobody said a word. Nor even moved much, except to scratch.
I had an idea who to blame for that.
Algarda opined, ‘‘I find it plausible. In fact, it ricochets off a theory I proposed in this very room, less than ten hours ago. And got put down.’’
He’d visited earlier? And nobody bothered to tell me?
It was but a rudiment of a notion at the time, unsupported by evidence. It had to be developed. It had to be researched.
Ah. Defensive. After only an oblique challenge.
It did tell me what he had had Penny Dreadful doing today.
‘‘Add this,’’ Algarda said. ‘‘I talked with the family on the way to the theater today. We have a collective memory that goes back several centuries. They recalled two similar occurrences, neither inside the Karentine sphere.’’
Wow! My problem at the World had turned geopolitical. And historical.
‘‘I discovered four incidents,’’ Jon Salvation said, with that snotty tone always adopted by the guy who corrects whatever you’ve just offered.
Winger knocked some of the brass off. ‘‘You and the girl. Penny.’’
‘‘Yes. Well. Everything is in theProceedings . If you can access them.’’ Smugness aimed my way. TheProceedings must be something they kept at the library. ‘‘Though the most dramatic incident may be apocryphal.’’
I asked Winger, ‘‘You going to let him use language like that?’’
Algarda considered a suite of responses. He settled on not letting his ego get in the way. ‘‘The two I know of happened in Oatman Hwy in 1434 and in Florissant about a century before that. Date uncertain. Florissant isn’t a principality blessed with an excess of literacy even today.’’
I couldn’t say. I’m not possessed of an excess familiarity with exotic geography.
The Remora preened. ‘‘The other incidents happened inside Venageta. The Venageti tried to cover them up. Both were huge disasters. The more recent happened on the boundary between their part of the Cantard and ours about two hundred years ago. This is the one that might be apocryphal. Local tribesmen were supposed to have caused it.’’
I grumbled something about Pilsuds Vilchik being worse than the Dead Man at inflating a story in order to focus attention on himself.
I’d later find out that he’d gotten into the library by confessing to be a playwright to Lindalee’s boss. That harpy was addicted to historical dramas. Salvation promised her a complementary first-class seat the night his play opened.
He sneered. ‘‘You heard of the Great Roll-Up, Garrett?’’
‘‘Of course. It brought all that silver to the surface. Where it could be fought over for most of two hundred years.’’
‘‘That was the dragon.’’
I confessed, ‘‘Thatwould explain some things about how the war got started.’’ Better than any of the propaganda. But only marginally.
Algarda agreed. ‘‘That could be true.’’ He joined me in awarding Jon Salvation an abiding look of suspicion, though.
I’m always suspicious when some dimwit shows off knowledge he has no business having. Or demonstrates skills at charming people that don’t fit my prejudices.
What happened to the dragon? Or dragons?
Do not push it, Garrett. The little man is possessed of several illusions that make him more useful deluded than ever he could be if exposed.
That was a private message. An explanation would have to wait. I asked, ‘‘So, what’s really down there?’’ The Venageti had blamed ‘‘the Great Roll-Up’’ on ferocious earthquakes. I’d never doubted them. ‘‘We don’t want something busting out in the middle of the city.’’
‘‘Dragons,’’ Jon Salvation said.
‘‘Dragons,’’ Barate Algarda agreed.
Furious Tide of Light, positioned so neither Tinnie nor her father could see, nodded—then smoked off a violet-eyed promissory wink before snapping back into gray-eyed zombiedom, dully picking at her scalp.
‘‘Come on! Dragons?’’ I glared at the Remora. ‘‘I don’t buy it. It’s a dragon, how has it stayed alive? How come it hasn’t starved?’’
‘‘There are dragons and dragons, Garrett. Stop thinking big green scaly mean things with breath so bad it’s flammable. There’s no evidence that anything like that exists. But there must be a reason for the legends. And we see living proof of other legends every day. Hell, your place here is infested with living legends.’’
You might say, since I have a dead Loghyr, a ratgirl, a murder of pixies (pleasantly unobtrusive of late), and a natural-born redhead in inventory. Not to mention the world’s greatest detective.
‘‘So this thing down under isn’t really a dragon. It just looks like a dragon, smells like a dragon, acts like a dragon, and thinks like a dragon. And might be what made people come up with the idea of the dragon.’’
‘‘Exactly. Right first go. Darling, you haven’t been giving Garrett nearly enough credit.’’
And they wonder why regular folk look askance at intellectuals.
Winger showed him a clenched fist. ‘‘I’ve got something I’m gonna give you. And it’s a long way from what you want.’’
Children!
‘‘Yeah,’’ I chimed in. Despite both beer and exhaustion I was wide awake now. One sneaky wink from the Windwalker. That woman would never need a compliance device. ‘‘So. Not a dragon. But a dragon. One that doesn’t need to eat for ten thousand years. Wow. Mystery solved.’’
Everybody stared. Even Old Bones, in his unique way.
‘‘I’m fishing for suggestions on how to lay the ghosts to rest,’’ I said. ‘‘I’m not the supergenius everybody thinks.’’
Those who had known me more than a week succeeded in restraining an impulse to disagree. So did the other two.
No other response, either. ‘‘All right. It’s a dragon. How do we talk to it?’’
The Windwalker startled us by asking, ‘‘Why make it more aware of us by trying to communicate? If the historical awakenings were all worse than any natural disaster?’’
Did anybody mention that? I never heard that. Except by implication.
People still knew things they hadn’t told me.
Something passed between the Windwalker and her father. A silent argument, the bottom line of which was that she wasnot going to be quiet.
Another bizarre angle to that relationship. Silent communication.
Not the same as us. They are just close. And, after a reflective pause,But a gap seems to be opening. I caution you, urgently, not to yield to temptation.
I glanced at Tinnie. ‘‘I don’t think you need to worry.’’
I must. I am at the mercy of human nature. Of which you demonstrate an abundant excess.
Algarda got right back on his horse. ‘‘She has a point. The best thing that could happen would be for this dragon to go back to sleep. It would seem that they do sleep for geological ages.’’
Tinnie said, ‘‘Maybe they’re waiting for something. Maybe they have a whole different sense of time and ten thousand years is like a few hours to us. Or maybe they’re booby traps. Like for gods, or something. But o
nce in a while some idiot finds a way to trip into their trigger line.’’
That’s my gal. Escalating the whole damned thing into the realm of the divine. Me, being me, I wound up to spout something about the immorality of us passing our troubles to generations not yet born.
A dozen staring eyes brought the urge under control.
Me making the argument would be weak, anyway. The great philosophical thread tying my life together is, put off till tomorrow whatever doesn’t absolutely have to be done today.
The best course, indeed, based on the evidence available. Assuming we want to return to the situation that obtained a month ago. So we must do what we have been doing. Only more effectively. Mr. Prose.
The formal address tumbled off into limbo.
Kip!
The boy yelped. And flinched away from Kyra. Betraying a guilty conscience simply by thinking he needed to open some space. «What?» In a breathless panic.
You do understand that primary responsibility for events in the theater and its environs lies with the Faction? That it was your ill-considered experimentation that caused this dragon to stir?
Being a teen, Kip was inclined to argue. But the pressure of the eyes was too much for him, too. ‘‘Yeah. I guess.’’ He scratched his noggin.
Then you and the Faction are obligated to make sure nothing you may have left lying around, or, more particularly,anything you might have sneaked out and squirreled away, in any way exacerbates the situation.
When you’re dead and don’t have to pause for breath, you can reel off sentences like that.
Do I make myself plain? Do you understand?
That is what the gallery overheard. I was sure there was more communication on a private level.
Kip’s surrender was meek and complete. I half expected the ancient formula ‘‘It shall be done.’’
Excellent. Going forward from this moment Miss Winger and her associate will accompany you everywhere. For your protection.
Winger received instructions on a private level.
Kevans is partially responsible for this problem, too.
I grumbled, ‘‘We already established that we can blame everything on the Faction.’’
Barate Algarda responded on behalf of Family Algarda. ‘‘Kevans will cooperate. Cypres. I believe Zardoz is the one who’ll have to make this all right.’’
‘‘Yes, sir. Zardoz and Teddy. And Mutter. And Slump and Heck and Spiffy.’’
I said, ‘‘We might see if John Stretch can find a few more rats to put down there. Just to ferret out any dead-ender bugs. Or any recent hatchlings.’’
You might consider speaking more carefully in this company,Garrett. Miss Winger being no less dangerous than the Algardas.
I might, indeed. I’d been focused on what John Stretch had said about the rats likely being unwilling to go down under again. I should have been thinking about guarding his secret. Winger has a huge mouth. And no telling what Hill types would try if they got control of somebody who can master rats.
78
They were all gone, including Tinnie, who insisted she couldn’t trust Winger and the Remora to properly chaperone two reekingly hormonal teens. Which made sense. The part about not trusting Winger.
I didn’t remind her that she hadn’t been much older than Kyra when we’d met. Of course, nothing more than a bad case of bugged eyes on my part came of that. Tinnie Tate was my good buddy Denny’s tasty young cousin. Practically family. She and his sister Rose were both off-limits. At the time.
Times changed. Tinnie and Rose grew up. Rose turned wicked. Denny got himself killed, accidentally. Tinnie and I locked horns during the cleanup and got something going that neither of us has shaken since. No matter what distractions turned up.
I drew me a pitcher of Weider’s most potent dark and retreated to the solitude of my little office. Which I share with the memory of one of my most potent distractions, Eleanor.
I filled my mug. I turned my chair. I stared at the magical painting. ‘‘What do you think, sweetheart? Is it time Tinnie and I go to the next page?’’
The artist who painted Eleanor was an insane genius, slave to a powerful inner sorcery. All his work had been charged to crackling with magic. His portrait of Eleanor fleeing the horror of her past was his ultimate masterpiece. He poured bottomless love and hatred on top of everything else that made his works objects of such power and dread.
He’s long gone. The magic in his work began to bleed away the night of his murder. But its connection to the soul of long-lost Eleanor will never fade to nil.
The painting is never quite the same when I come to it.
Eleanor is my moral and emotional coach, crutch, and mirror. More so than the big lump in the other room. Who had troubles of his own tonight.
He’d had almost no luck picking brains. The most interesting people all had the split personality thing going. What he could read made no sense. The heads that were open contained nothing of interest. So now he was sulking and trying to work out what had happened.
Everybody, including my self-proclaimed demigod of a partner, insists that Eleanor doesn’t exist outside my imagination. I’m content with that. It’s even true, in its way.
Their truth or mine, Eleanor does exist. We communicate.
Reflection set some thoughts in motion. Like some multiple-minded Loghyr I fiddled with those while Eleanor helped me weigh the pros and cons of what looked likely to be Garrett’s next big adventure.
I asked, ‘‘How come I always turn melancholy when we get together?’’
She made me understand that melancholy was the price I paid, here, because the only person I could share my inner truths with comfortably was on the other shore.
I couldn’t argue with that. Everybody on this side has the power to judge and down-thumbs me. Even Singe, who comes near being as comfortable as Eleanor.
Note that with me outside his little fiefdom the Dead Man didn’t horn in. Not once. Might not even be eavesdropping.
Probably wasn’t.
Almost certainly wasn’t.
I’ve known Old Bones longer than Tinnie and almost as long as Morley. I live with him. I drown in him, sometimes. Yet I know him less well than my best friend or the light of my life.
Somebody came pounding on the door. I didn’t respond. Singe and Dean had gone to bed. After a while the Dead Man paused in his ruminations long enough to sendOur would-be visitor was Colonel Block. He had business reasonsfor being here, but his principal motive was a need for contact with persons not one hundred percent vile. A lonely man, the colonel.
I had no wiseass response. In my mood of the moment I could only empathize with Westman Block, a good man doing his best in dreadful circumstances. ‘‘So what business reason did he have for an excuse?’’ He’d as much as admitted having rifled the good man’s mind.
No doubt Block had expected that.
The colonel foresees another twist. A further complication, from a direction we haven’t considered.
‘‘And that would be? Details, please.’’
None available. It is an idea he developed during a meetingwith Director Relway where today’s events were the topic of discussion. Evidently those Hill folk who were disinclined to have anyone poke around where their children were playinghave taken a ninety-degree turn and now insist that the Civil Guard deal with Belle Chimes. Whose real name would be Belle Dierber. They also want Lurking Felhske found. Felhske is not involved with any of them. They want to know who set him on their children. And, of course, why.
‘‘The compliance device. Somebody wants it.’’
Forget the compliance device. It is a red herring. I am certain. The secret of creating giant bugs would be far more valuable.
‘‘What’s got you so cranky?’’
This explosion in the population of people whose minds I cannot access. All of whom, even Kip now, seem to have multiple personalities. None of which give up anything of interest.
I could see wh
ere that would irk him. He was used to having his way with anybody who came in range. Now his confidence was threatened.
I cannot get a handle on what is happening.
I glanced at my painting. Eleanor seemed more amused than I was.
Old Bones had no humor in him at all. He betrayed the depth of his emotional despond with his suggestion that I take my painting down to the World and let the dragon build me a new Eleanor. Then I could . . .
There’d been a time, not that long ago, when I would’ve considered it, off the wall as it was. Eleanor had been a strong distraction indeed. But now, not so much. Not that much.
Time to back off. I’d never known him to be so juvenile.
The moment passed. He apologized. And reminded me that Block thought we were headed for a surprise.
I hoped it would be revelatory rather than deadly.
Old Bones went away, his despair gently lightened.
After a while longer with Eleanor, because I didn’t want to face the night alone, I did drag me upstairs and put me to bed. Alone.
I tossed and turned and worried about a world in which the landscape of Tinnie’s left hand had changed.
79
I don’t know why. The world seemed remade in the morning. Maybe because I had slept ten hours. I felt totally positive. This would be a good day. There’d be no more problems at the World. Max would be thrilled. He’d give me a bonus instead of firing me.
I should’ve had a hangover. I should’ve been worried about the fallout from the carnage yesterday. I should’ve been uncomfortable about the Algardas, worried about Kip, worried about the Faction cleaning up after themselves. I should’ve been worried about demons named Deal Relway, Belle Chimes, and Lurking Felhske. Most of all, I should’ve lost control of my functions because of the complications developing with Tinnie.
But I wore a smile when I joined Dean in the kitchen.
The doom and gloom were haunting him. Starting the sausages, he said, ‘‘I need some reassurance, Mr. Garrett.’’
