by Glen Cook
The lady gave the order. And added, "You're interfering with royal business. I'll have your—"
"Not at all. I have a damned good idea what you're looking for and I'll be happy to help you find it. I just don't want my people getting chewed up while you're getting your man. Do you have some way to pick him out of a crowd?"
"Pick who out?" Oh, she wanted to play coy.
"Are you the only person ever born with a brain? This is your stalking horse talking. I figured your crowd out a month ago," I lied. I backed her up a careful five steps and in plain voice vented the moment's inspiration. "I also figured out that Big One there is on the other side. He tried to kill me in Leifmold, which would have just ruined your whole scheme."
Big One started moving toward the nearest weapon.
Two throwing stars hit him, followed in an instant by a grollish fist.
The woman said, "That explains one hell of a lot. I thought we were snakebit. All right. What do you want, Garrett?"
"For me and mine to be left the hell alone. Take your man if you can pick him out. I'm all for that because I don't like what he's got planned for me. Hell. I'll narrow it down for you. I've been working on it. I know who he's not. If he's anybody. He could have been killed out there. A lot of men were."
I gave orders. The women, Saucerhead, Dojango, and Marsha, the latter three lugging Kayean and Valentine, moved to one side. I said, "Do your shopping among what's left."
"Will you let me go?"
"Why not? You don't seem to be a suicidal lady."
"You're going to find out if you call me lady one more time."
Morley snickered. "You've made a friend for life, Garrett."
What she had to say to him does not bear repetition. She asked me, "What's in those bundles?"
"What I came after." I turned her loose.
Morley was flickering around the edges because of too many hasty movements. So was Doris. I had stayed slow, though, so I figured I was still good. I tiptoed after the woman who was not a lady.
She examined the crop, dipped a hand into a pocket, brought out an amulet built around a piece of amber with an insect embedded.
Spiney Prevallet went from somnolent indifference to explosive fury so suddenly I would have been astounded if I'd had time. He knocked the amulet away with one hand and seized the woman's throat with the other.
I pricked the wrist of that hand with my knife, sliced his cheek, then got back out of the way because that—pardon the expression—lady was going to work.
I found a part of me glad the villain had not been Vasco.
Spiney ran for it. The woman snagged her amulet and raced after him. Her minions—those still upright—did nothing because they weren't sure what we would let them do.
"Fade," Morley suggested.
"Yes."
Dojango was many things, some of them things I didn't like, but he was not stupid. The moment he saw some folks preoccupied, he started getting other people out of there.
Spiney tried for the exit himself and ran head-on into a grollish fist. The woman jumped him immediately, forced the amulet into his mouth while he was still groggy.
He began to change.
I have heard that a shapeshifter has no true shape of its own. That it does not even have a sex as we know it, but just splits into unequal masses when it comes time to reproduce. I don't know.
Spiney changed into the major, then into a character who looked vaguely piratical, then into a woman vaguely familiar, apparently regressing through identities assumed in the past.
Everyone else was out. I wasn't curious enough to stay and see the ultimate form the Venageti agent assumed. I had no reason to presume any excess of good will on the part of the striped-sail people.
52
It was a dawn-threatening hour when we reached the inn. I had let the soldiers go their ways, betting they would be so happy to get back alive that they'd cause no immediate grief. Morley and I had an argument. He thought we should have fed them to the striped-sail gang, who would have kept them busy answering questions while we got out of town.
A brief interview with the innkeeper confirmed my suspicions in that direction. He had kept our quarters open and had maintained our gear intact at the behest of the striped-sail crowd, who had hoped we would come back so they could catch our trail again. Which they had done with Dojango's visit.
I slept like the dead for five hours, then went out looking for transportation home. My luck was limited. I went back and announced, "First ship with room enough for all of us doesn't leave till day after tomorrow. The Glory Mooncalled situation has the fainter-hearted civilians heading north. The scow I did find is a garbage pail, but the next best chance means waiting more than a week." I did not mention that even this sleaziest of transports had stretched my remaining expense money to its limit. We'd all get hungry if it was a very long passage home.
I sat beside Morley. "I'll never take another job that takes me out of TunFaire, even if there's a hundred thousand in it for me."
"Speaking of money, when are we going to get paid? It's not critical to me because I didn't sign on for the pay. But the triplets did and they're starting to wonder."
"It'll have to wait till I can corner Tate and gouge him again. I committed what I had left to getting us home."
"They're trusting you, Garrett. Don't disappoint them."
"You know me better. I'll get my money out of Tate, one way or another, and you guys will get yours. Dojango! Where are those boxes?" He'd just come in. "You didn't drink up that money I gave you, did you?"
"Actually, I just came to tell you they're here, on a wagon out back. The landlord is having a fit that they might upset his customers if we bring them inside."
Morley grumbled, "I'll go have a fit of dancing on his head."
We put our prizes into their caskets that night. They were the standard, cheap shipper coffins folks from up north bought to bring their sons home from the war. Dojango admitted that he had gotten some drinking done. He had gotten a buy on the coffins because the long quiet spell in the Cantard had caused a depression in the Full Harbor casket industry.
I was irritated but didn't press.
After dark I took my prize out and got her cleaned up before I installed her in her coffin. Tinnie helped with the trickier parts and Kayean wasn't too much trouble. She didn't do any screaming.
I wondered what sorcery went into the creation of those white gowns. Kayean's refused to be damaged and soil would not cling.
Morley was less fastidious. He put some fresh dirt in the other box, unwrapped his prize, dumped it in, began nailing the lid down. He had to ask Marsha's help when the pounding wakened Valentine and he started screaming and trying to break out.
We'd just gotten him quieted down and the landlord off our backs again when Zeck Zack came calling.
The centaur came alone and started out friendly enough. He pranced in, looked us over, asked, "Did you bring her out, Mr. Garrett?"
"Yes."
"May I see her? I haven't seen her since she followed her idiot husband into shadow. Her and her damned twisted sense of what is right. I should have stopped her somehow."
"Might have been nice."
Morley and Saucerhead gave him ferocious scowls. Tharpe didn't know him at all. I feared there would be sparks. But he disarmed them by saying, "I never laid a hand on her and I never would. Despite my reputation. And not just because her father was a friend of mine."
As Morley had observed before, another one.
I opened the casket. She was sleeping. The centaur looked for a while, then backed off. "That's enough. Close it. Can she be cured, Mr. Garrett?"
"I think we reached her in time. She fought it all the way. I think she's got enough left."
"Good. Then we can get down to business. Someone among you took something from the nest that rightfully belongs to my people."
That drew some puzzled looks.
"The bloodmaster's amulet. His symbol of power.
The nest's bloodstone."
I don't know who started laughing first.
He gathered his dignity like a cloak. "Gentlemen, I went through years of hell and humiliation in order to find that gateway so my folk could cleanse that nest and gain enough booty and bounty money to migrate out of the Cantard. You can have your two bloodslaves. One of them I owe, and the other isn't worth enough to make a difference. But everything else in that hole is mine!"
We exchanged looks. Dojango was getting nervous. I didn't want to start anything, but I wasn't going to tolerate the centaur's tone, either. "You've got more balls than brains if you think you can walk in here talking like that. You could get yourself hurt."
"I don't have any swords hanging over my head now, Mr. Garrett. And I have friends in town who will be happy to help me recover my property."
"Now that's an interesting coincidence," I said. "Just yesterday I made a new friend, a lady down from TunFaire rounding up the Venageti priest's friends. I wasn't going to mention your name."
He stared at me a moment, decided my bluff needed calling. "Go ahead. Meantime, get that bloodstone out to my place before sundown tomorrow or find Kayean a new guardian."
"He's insane," Morley said. "You should have let me kill him when I wanted to. It's going to be trickier doing it here."
Zeck Zack said, "A large group of my friends are waiting in the street. They'd rather not disturb anything in such a public place, but they will come in if I'm not out in a reasonable time."
"Go on," I said. "Get out. Before I call your bluff."
He went, but left an admonition to get the bloodstone to him by next sundown. Or else.
Dojango asked, "You're not going to give it to him, are you, Garrett?"
Morley snarled, "We're going to give it to him, all right. Only it ain't going to be what he wants."
I said, "Take it easy, Morley. Think. He's trying to set us up."
"I know. And it's going to be a shame to abort his scheme because it's a wowser for a creature as mentally handicapped as a centaur. We've got plenty of time. Let's get some sleep and worry about it tomorrow."
53
I woke up very late, and what dragged me from dreamland was Saucerhead Tharpe and the grolls stomping in. I popped up. I'd been left alone with the women and Vasco. I checked myself for knife wounds.
"Where're Morley and Dojango? What have you guys been up to?"
"Around somewhere," Saucerhead said in his slow way. "I think Morley said something about getting something decent to eat. We took the coffins and most of our stuff down to the ship so we'd be ready to go tomorrow morning."
I grumbled a bit and went for a breakfast of my own. I didn't worry much until afternoon rolled around and still there was no sign of Morley or Dojango. I started fisheying Saucerhead, who had something on his conscience and was doing a poor job of hiding it. Then I found the bodies.
Actually, they weren't bodies. They were Kayean and Valentine, bundled up and concealed under some odds and ends and junk and straw left from when the place had been a stable. Then I knew what Morley had done.
Saucerhead looked relieved. He told me, "He said just sit tight and pretend they're around somewhere if anybody asks."
Two minutes later I noticed that my last paper spell fold was missing. I couldn't guess what Morley planned to do with it since there was no way he could know what would happen when he opened it. I tried fifty lines of reasoning but fixed on none of them. There was no predicting a darkelfin breed like Morley.
When afternoon gave way to evening I started prowling. The grolls got restless, too, and might have gone off if they hadn't the strictest of orders. My game of tease with Tinnie lost its savor. Rose got nervous because everyone else was, though she didn't know what was going on. Only Saucerhead was able to relax. I have to fight the temptation to say that it was because he wasn't smart enough.
Nothing happened until just before midnight, when one of Zeck Zack's "friends" came to chide us for not having delivered. I told him, "We're right here waiting whenever he wants a piece of us. Tell him he'd better bring a box lunch because it's going to take awhile to get the job done."
The messenger departed a little flustered.
I wondered how the centaur's nerves were doing, out in the graveyard or wherever he was planning to take us when we tried sneaking up on him. I was willing to bet he'd planned for every contingency but us sitting tight. I hoped Morley hadn't walked into any of his plans.
Two hours later the handful of people left in the common room began buzzing. I went to find out why. Rumors were flying about a large fire out in the Narrows Hills. One of the mansions there.
Morley's opening move, I presumed.
There was nothing more for another three hours, then Dojango stumbled in, wounded, pale, barking in grollish. He flopped down as Doris and Marsha stamped out.
"Well?" I demanded.
"They're going to pick up the coffins."
I looked him over. Tinnie helped. She had a fair touch with wounds.
"That all you have to tell me?"
"Morley sent me back 'cause I got hurt, actually. He's still out there working them. If that critter gets out of this alive, it sure won't be on the cheap." And that was all he would say.
Awhile later the grolls came tramping back in with the coffins. The landlord was right behind them raising hell about our bunch stomping back and forth through the common room during quiet hours. "I'm never leaving TunFaire again," I promised myself once more, and snarled. "Quit your bitching. You've made a bundle because of us, playing all the sides, and we'll be out of your hair in an hour anyway. Do us all a favor and make yourself disappear."
I looked so nasty he had no trouble getting the hint.
We refilled and sealed the coffins and gathered what remained of our possessions. For Tinnie and Rose and Vasco and Saucerhead Tharpe that meant no work at all. Their adventures had left them with nothing but the clothing on their backs. I wondered if I ought to put a burr under Dojango's saddle, recalling how meticulously he had gone over the ruins of their last encampment, salvaging coins and jewelry the night people had discarded. I decided the wiser course was to keep everyone dependent upon my charity.
We marched out to the sighs of the landlord and his crew.
We reached and boarded our ship without suffering misadventure.
Time passed. The tide turned. The sailors prepared to cast off. And still there was no sign of Morley.
"Where the hell is he, Dojango?"
"He said don't worry. He said go ahead. He said don't hold up anything on his account." Dojango said it, but he didn't feel it. He wanted to do something.
I didn't believe it. Morley Dotes wouldn't sacrifice himself for anyone.
"Here he comes," Saucerhead said. The deck crew was paying out the last lines, fore and aft.
He was coming for sure, in that sort of wild sprint only elfin can manage. Zeck Zack was thirty yards behind and gaining fast.
"Perfect," Dojango whispered.
Perfect, like hell. Morley wasn't going to make it without help. I looked around for a weapon and couldn't find anything.
"Now!" Dojango said. And, "Actually!"
The striped-sail woman and her crew materialized from amid the freight on the pier. They all carried ready crossbows. Morley whipped past. Zeck Zack skidded to a halt, stood there shuddering. Morley leaped from the pier to the ship, teeth glistening in a grin.
"Is this the one?" the woman called.
"The very one, darling," Morley gasped.
The gang closed in on the centaur.
"You damned fool!" I yelled at Morley. "You could have been killed."
"But, if you'll notice, I wasn't."
54
The passage north was slower than it had been going south. The winds were less friendly. But it was almost as eventless. There was a spot of trouble one night when Rose tried pushing Kayean over the side, but she collected only bruises for her trouble. There were no encounters wi
th pirates, privateers, Venageti, or even Karentine naval vessels. We made Leifmold and I almost believed the gods had decided to lay off me for a while.
Rose's assault on Kayean was due to my lack of foresight.
I was taking her out of her box at night, giving her the chance to breathe real air and face the real light of the stars. Foodwise I had gotten her to where she could keep down small amounts of lightly browned chicken flesh. I'd left her on deck to fetch some, and had gotten into an argument with Tinnie, who felt I should be apportioning my time somewhat differently. Rose made her move and took her lumps in my absence. I found out what was happening only when one of the ship's night watch told me Rose needed saving.
I got there in time, though Kayean almost crossed the line and surrendered to the hunger. Rose crawled away, into the comforting arms of a Morley getting back to his cynical ways.
I calmed and fed Kayean and we sat in the starlight awhile, watching the wake luminesce and the flying fish leap. She finally spoke. "Where are you taking me?"
Her words were barely intelligible. Down in the nests, it is said, they don't allow their brides to talk. She was rusty.
No one had told her what was going on. I'd just snatched her and dragged her along, giving her as much control of her destiny as she'd had while she was in the pit.
So I told her the story, and I wound up saying, "I think you ought to grab it. Denny wanted you to have it, and right now it's the only thing you've got going in this whole world."
She gave me a look that took me back in time. I had to take her down and put her away before I did something foolish. I returned to the deck to watch the sea unscramble my brain.
Morley came out of the darkness and settled beside me. After a while, he said, "I have a statistic I want you to consider, Garrett. Of all the guys who have loved her, only one is still alive." Then he was gone. The superstitious half-breed.
Later I took advantage of Tinnie's conciliatory mood to lay my haunts for a while.
