by Glen Cook
‘‘Ultimate badass bonebreaker, Garrett. You don’t want to mess with him. But you don’t need to worry. He only works for rich people. Just don’t piss Weider off so much he wants to crunch you. Hell. How come you’re asking? Just curious. On account of, Tick-Tack himself was here only about an hour ago.’’
‘‘What? No way.’’
‘‘Way. You can’t imagine how big he is.’’
‘‘What did he want?’’
‘‘I don’t know. He didn’t say. He just strolled in and started looking around. Soon as he seen all of us watching he took off.’’
‘‘Been any rumors about him lately? Head? Anybody?’’ «Been keeping a low profile. Any of you guys heard anything ? See?»
‘‘That’s really what I expected. I guess I’m as warm as I’m going to get here. Oh. I figure the workmen will be back tomorrow.’’
‘‘We got that word, maybe twenty minutes ago. Message signed by Director Relway himself. These guys are supposed to hang around and keep an eye out in case of developments.’’
Damn! The prince moved fast. ‘‘That’s good, then.’’ I stopped by my cases and mumbled a bit before I plunged into the great white.
There wasn’t much light left. I decided to use what there was to check out the Faction clubhouse, see how busy they’d been cleaning up.
There were tracks around the steps, most going in, a few coming out. This deserved closer examination.
As I started a little voice chirped, ‘‘Mr. Garrett? Is that you?’’
Took me a few seconds to locate her. ‘‘Mindie? Mindie Grinblatt? What are you doing here?’’
‘‘We were watching the place down under there for Mr. Algarda. He hired Daddy to keep people out. We would get to live there. But a little while ago this monster came. Daddy told me to get around behind it, then climb the stairs and get away. So I did. But he didn’t tell me what to do after I got out. So I’ve just been waiting. And I’m getting worried. Mama and Daddy haven’t come up to tell me it’s all right.’’
Oh boy! ODTAA for sure.
I considered options. Most involved me going somewhere else and staying out of the way while natural dwarfish resilience took place. It would take some managing to best the Grinblatts in tight quarters underground.
But Mindie did say that a monster had come.
‘‘Tell me about the monster. What was it? How big?’’
‘‘I don’t know. Really big. I just saw tusks and a lot of hair. Or maybe it was wearing a fur coat.’’
Not good. Played right into the conspiracy theory I was developing.
‘‘That’s good. You’re doing good so far. Here’s what we’ll do. You give me your ax and your sword and your shield—’’
‘‘But then I won’t haveanything . . . .’’
‘‘You’ll still have your other sword, your daggers, your truncheon, your boots, your teeth, and anything you’ve got for your trousseau. You’ll only have to go a couple of blocks. . . . Good girl. Let me see how that helmet fits, too.’’
It was loose. A little dwarf girl’s dress-up hat.
‘‘All right. I’m going down and see about your mom and dad. I want you to run to the World. The big building where you saw me the first time. Tell a man named Saucerhead what happened and what I’m doing. Got that?’’
She nodded. Hitched her breeches. Dug something out of somewhere. ‘‘You’ll need these.’’ She handed me a couple of warm blond stones the size and shape of chestnuts. They were so smooth they felt oily. And they glowed like feeble candlelight. ‘‘Moonstones. There’s a little light left in them. Take care of my stuff.’’ And off she went, no longer troubled.
Of course. It was all on me now.
I fumbled one of the stones, but could see it through the snow. I made sure I got it back. Mindie wanted me to take care of her stuff. I shoved both stones into a right-hand side pocket of the beaver coat. Clumsily.
I was trying to manage a clutch of edged weapons. Even the shield had its sharp sides. I needed to be careful.
It got dark fast under the house. But, on the plus side, there was no wind.
I had a stroke of smarts. Brought out one of Mindie’s stones. Dull, creamy light, like the light of a full moon that’s gotten just high enough to have lost its autumn orange. Excellent!
Then, uh-oh! A little girl had given me moonstones. Which had to be one of the deepest secrets of her people. She’d done so thoughtlessly, as though to someone of her own tribe.
Moonstones. I’d never heard of such a thing. I couldn’t begin to imagine how much they’d be worth.
So there I was—
Which is the way so many anecdotes start. Usually ones where the speaker sheepishly relates some adventure in which he came off less than shining.
But not always.
So there I was, moonstone in my right hand, dangerously sharp arsenal in my left. I worked out a way to put the child’s sword up my left sleeve without wounding myself, then tightened the shield’s straps so it would ride my left forearm and keep the sword in place at the same time. I adjusted the helmet, grabbed hold of the ax handle in my left hand, and proceeded. Holding the ax out like it was a cobra in a foul mood.
That ax was so sharp I could hear it slicing the air.
Dwarves let little girls play with razor-sharp steel. They never get hurt. A grown man ought to be able to . . . Ouch! And what was that?
Somebody having trouble breathing. Given a listen, there was no mistaking the sound, though I hadn’t heard it in a while. Somebody had what they call a sucking chest wound.
Urban Jack.
Me having had the description, this couldn’t be anyone else.
Damn, he was huge! How the hell had he gotten down the stairs?
He was scattered around the floor of that anteroom in the deepest basement. There was blood everywhere, tacky but a long way from dry. Jack had suffered at least a dozen cuts, most shallow, well distributed. Plus the chest wound, where something had gone in deep enough to penetrate a lung.
I held a moonstone up high, to light as much area as possible.
Urban Jack sensed my presence. Dull eyes cracked open. He couldn’t have seen me very well, with the moonstone over my head. He reached up, got hold of the beaver coat for a second. ‘‘Boss? I think they were too much for me this time.’’ His eyes closed again. His hand fell.
He did go on breathing raggedly.
‘‘Grinblatt! Rindt! Where the hell are you? You all right?’’
No answer.
I started with the clubhouse door. Nothing. Nobody and nothing. The place had been cleaned out of everything but an underground smell.
Likewise, the little trysting room. That one before any other, most likely.
I picked the bad door for last, meaning I tried the one I thought led to the Faction’s lab. And there I found a full complement of Grinblatts. Less Mindie, gone for help.
They were all unconscious. Which meant they were bad hurt. Some dwarves can go into hibernation, or sort of an induced coma, when they suffer a life-threatening trauma. Meaning these dwarves were in a bad way but they could be saved. They wouldn’t be getting out of the cellar without being carried, though.
I placed the moonstones on a naked table and started checking the dwarves. Essentially a futile gesture. They were all bundled up in their standard dwarfish apparel. I’d need a blacksmith to get them out.
The boy appeared to be in the best shape. He lay farthest from the doorway. It looked like his mother had broken bones. Rindt had more broken bones. He looked awful. I was amazed he was breathing, induced coma or no. He had to have serious internal injuries.
First things first. Mindie’s moonstones were fading.
I’d just gotten a third lamp burning when I heard Saucerhead’s remote bellow. ‘‘Garrett?’’
‘‘Come on down. It’s safe.’’ If there had been any spells, Urban Jack had torn them up. ‘‘Be careful on the stairs.’’
I slipped the
moonstones back into my pocket.
The lamplight revealed a lot more nothing. The place had been stripped. Only a dozen dirty, empty tables remained. There was no seeing any wall but the one housing the door I’d used to get in. There were pillars that seemed to go out in endless ranks and files. There were echoes.
This was not something the Faction had created for themselves.
But they had gotten it emptied out fast. Them and their moms and dads.
Saucerhead came clumping down, followed by several other pairs of feet. ‘‘I’m in here. Whatever you do, don’t open any doors.’’
Tharpe arrived. ‘‘What the hell did you do, Garrett? I know you’re handy when they get you backed into a corner, but there ain’t no way you took Urban Jack.’’
‘‘You’re right. That would be these people here.’’
‘‘Dwarves? No shit?’’ He put down a typical human impulse to argue. ‘‘That actually makes more sense. Dwarves wouldn’t fuck around trying to talk about it. They wouldn’t worry about no appropriate level of response. They seen an Urban Jack headed their way, they’d go to the axes first.’’ He added a bit of philosophy I probably ought to consider more when I get all morally judgmental. ‘‘Better to be alive and feel bad than dead and feel nothing.’’
‘‘Yeah. You see that face coming at you out of the darkness, you shouldn’t worry about anything but chopping it up.>
‘‘How did the asshole get down here, Garrett? Big as he is?’’
‘‘I don’t know. Had to work at it, I guess. I don’t care. These dwarves need hauled out. We could turn these tables into stretchers.’’
‘‘Is that a good idea? What do we do with them once we’ve got them out in the cold?’’
Not a point I wanted to hear, but a good one. ‘‘Mindie? Are you here? Where’s Mindie?’’
‘‘Who? The little dwarf?’’
‘‘Her.’’
‘‘I think—’’
A little voice piped up in the antechamber. ‘‘I’m out here, Mr. Garrett.’’ She weaseled between Figgie Joe and a couple red caps, looked around. ‘‘I was going to stick a knife in the monster’s eye. But then I thought how bad he would start to smell, and how long it would be before there was nothing left but bones. So I left him alone. Maybe he can get out of here on his own. Then you can chop his head off.’’
‘‘Sugar and spice,’’ Tharpe observed.
‘‘And everything nice. Mindie, what about your mom and dad and brother?’’
She was looking them over as I asked. ‘‘It isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Everything will turn out all right, given time, Mr. Garrett.’’ She knelt beside her father.
Saucerhead and his companions gaped. Me too. This wasn’t the scared little girl I’d found hiding in the blizzard a little bit ago. Nor was she the girl who’d shown up at the World looking for help from Saucerhead. Now she was a girl confident of the future.
Two minutes later she was a little manager telling Saucerhead and the guys thanks for the help, and they could get back to what they’d been doing now. They smiled some and nodded some. Tharpe and Figgie Joe did go.
The red caps stayed right where they were. Violence had been done without official license. They were going to sit in here till they got official instructions from the Al-Khar. Which meant that somebody had gone to get those.
I might want to move on myself, then. I had no special desire to spend my evening answering stupid questions over and over.
Mindie accepted the presence of the law. What chance did a kid have? She came to me. ‘‘Thank you. They’ll be all right. Daddy will take a while to recover, though. Did you take care of my stuff? I’ll take it back now.’’
I pointed. Shield, sword, ax, and helmet rested on one of the otherwise empty tables. The moonstones were in my coat pocket. I slipped them to her without the red caps noticing. ‘‘You sure you’ll be all right?’’
‘‘I’ll be fine, Mr. Garrett. I have these men to protect me if the monster gets back up.’’ But, for an instant, the frightened child peered out from behind the confident mask dwarves have to show us lesser species.
‘‘All right. I don’t want to be late for supper. But only if you’re absolutely sure.’’
Fleeting dwarfish smile from behind a beard just starting to come in. ‘‘No, you don’t want to miss a meal.’’ And, as I was sliding past the red tops, ‘‘Thank you again, Mr. Garrett.’’
87
As noted, a heavy, wet snow is a quiet place. And blinding. People are vague shapes till you feel their breath.
How Lurking Felhske found me, I couldn’t imagine. I’d have thought it impossible. Proof he was a genius. But he didn’t surprise me, bath or no bath. Twice he came close enough for me to sense as he sized me up. Then he took a run at me less than a quarter mile from home. Coming at me out of the snow like he was just another miserable traveler slouching along in the opposite direction.
I didn’t actually know it was Felhske then. There was no telltale stench. But I did realize that somebody was sizing me up.
He got the tip of the oak headknocker between the eyes as he drew even, before he could turn and jump me from behind. His knees went wobbly. I got behind him, shoved a knee into his spine while laying my club across his throat. ‘‘Be good, brother.’’ Taking a while to realize who I had, which I did only after I realized I had hold of a very oddly constructed gentleman.
Despite the orangutan shape Felhske conceded his shortcomings as a street fighter. He resigned himself.
‘‘What the hell are you thinking? Your principal is out of action.’’
He twitched. Meaning maybe his employer wasn’t out of the equation after all. ‘‘Who’re you working for?’’
He wasn’t going to talk.
I got his weird long arms up behind him, marched him toward my place. We would let the Dead Man deal.
Old Bones sensed my approach. He touched me lightly, to let me know he was there, then expressed surprise that I wasn’t alone. He couldn’t sense Felhske at all. He suggested I thump the man a couple times to make sure he didn’t start thinking clearly.
His mind is extremely well protected. Bring him right to me. This should be instructive.
‘‘Right.’’ Whatever that meant. Exercising my full wit and reason, in the face of the hints that had been accumulating, I bounded to an improbable conclusion. Barate Algarda had hired Felhske to punish me for lusting after the Windwalker. Or to keep quiet his illegal and immoral goings-on with his female descendants.
I had an old-fashioned, tight-ass upbringing. In my family that stuff would’ve been taken seriously.
So. Furious Tide of Light? She could get her daddy-lover to do something out of character and stupid. But why would she? Even to protect her baby. It wasn’t that big a deal to her. Kevans wasn’t particularly important in this. Was she?
Ah. You will enjoy this. Chuckles was in a lighthearted mood.Come join our guests.
Singe let us in. Her eyes bugged when she saw who I’d caught. ‘‘Look at the hair on him. Maybe he really is a monkey.’’
She was right. Felhske’s head was a briar patch. The rest of him was damned near shaggy as a bear.
I found the full membership of the Faction crowded into the Dead Man’s room, none of them thrilled to be there. Kyra Tate was on hand, too, evidently having lost the capacity to separate herself from Kip Prose. Even the apostate twins, Berbach and Berbain, were in the klatch, identifiable because their mom still dressed them alike. Old Bones must have armed Kip with some especially convincing arguments.
All should be well soon, Garrett. The last Faction problemsrelating to the World have been, or shortly will be, corrected and controlled. But he felt unsure. Something wasn’t going the way he wanted. He was moody.
Did Kip look a little smug over there?
I’d see what I could do about knocking that off his clock.
I said nothing but tried to send the Dead Man the idea that I thou
ght he’d just blown out a cloud of wicked wishful thinking.
Not very amusing, Garrett. I am stressed to my limits.
‘‘Yeah? Want to share?’’
Mr. Felhske is less than six feet away, yet I can barely detect his presence. My sense for all these children is only slightly better. The only open head among them is Miss Tate. There is little of value to be found in there.
‘‘I’m thinking it might not be you. You’re havingno luck with the kids?’’
Very little. Every single one has a dual personality. The twins are outright frightening.
‘‘Have you noticed the tonsorial fashion statement?’’
He can see only by using somebody’s else eyes. He borrowed mine. And picked up my suspicions at the same time.
Aha! Yes! Singe. Please pull the hair of whichever youngsteris easiest to reach. As hard as you can! Garrett, stand by to deal with an outraged response.
Singe snatched a fright wig off the gourd of a kid I hadn’t seen before. She yelped, stared at her fingers. The kid turned out to be an attractive young lady with long blond hair, not a pretty boy with good skin.
That is the answer! the Dead Man crowed.Garrett, bless you! You found the answer. I have been a fool. It was in front of me all the time. Once again I have failed to see what I did not expect to see.
He was thrilled. He would’ve gotten up and danced if he could.
No exception but Kyra, those kids weren’t thrilled. They’d been found out. Now all they wanted was to get away.
Old Bones tried to make the blonde help snatch wigs. Painful work. Something in the hair stung and cut my fingers. The cuts burned.
All will be explained now! The Dead Man began trying to control the scalped in an effort to stem that tidal bore of panicky youth dedicated to getting out of our house.
He had the same luck as a cat flung into a room with fifty mice.
I felt his frustration. He had been far gone in his weakened self-confidence. Which did roar back for seconds only.
Chaos reigned. Shrieking kids trampled me and Singe. A blast of winter air filled the hallway as Dean emerged from the kitchen armed with a rolling pin and cast-iron skillet.
