by Glen Cook
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.”
“That’s what they say. That she might be an incarnation of a death spirit. A real shinigami. Look, I’m pretty sure this tournament was a jackleg operation from the get-go, a case of incompetent ambition driving the halt and blind in a scheme fancied up by a brain-dead sociopath born with no imagination.”
The dogs stopped to stare.
“Be sure you let us know what you really think, old buddy.”
“The only reason we haven’t buried the whole mess already is that it’s so stupid we can’t figure it out.” Or maybe because there was more than one thing going on and I kept pounding square pegs to make it a solitaire.
“Uh. . way to make yourself clear.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Actually, I do. It’s like trying to find a serial killer. They aren’t usually smart, they just don’t have any obvious connection to their victims, and the logic driving them is alien.”
“That’s kind of basically it.”
“Here’s an odd thought. Assuming you’re figuring on heading on back home. How about we visit Playmate?”
“It needs doing. It would do wonders for my attitude if he turned out spanking good. But there is the matter of pending excitement at Chattaree.” And of my ever-growing inclination to go see Strafa.
Something was going on way down below the surface of my mind. I couldn’t get it to come out, but I had experience enough with me to know it was coming. To suspect that seeing Strafa might break it loose.
I couldn’t shake Shadowslinger’s dread prophecy about an onrushing deadline.
Morley grumbled, “There is Chattaree, yes.” After a dozen steps, he mused, “Maybe it would have been wiser to swallow your pride and hand it off to the tin whistles.”
Whoa! “Damn! I did waste a fat opportunity when we had Scithe right there. We had one of Block’s top boys and Relway’s own cousin besides. What more could I ask?”
“So we’ll see Play on the way back from Chattaree.”
I like how he remains optimistic.
“Seen the blond kid around?” I asked.
“Not since Beifhold’s Mill. But don’t bet a rusty Venageti fil that she isn’t watching.”
My own thoughts exactly.
102
The stroll to the Dream Quarter took us into a new climate zone. The sun there was trying to break through the overcast. Then the ground quivered gently, weirdly, just as a sunbeam pierced the clouds and stabbed Chattaree, painting the masonry bone white and pale golden.
“Somebody got all busy with the whitewash,” Morley said.
“Yeah. I didn’t notice the other day. But the light was bad then.”
Clouds above went on about their celestial business. The sunbeam perished. Chattaree lost its glow.
Morley quipped, “That couldn’t last.”
“Looked too much like a blessing.”
We came to the bench that Moonblight and I had exploited before. I decided to repeat the exercise, though the east end was occupied by a derelict. A little guy, he had not yet chosen to make the bench a bed. I scooted over enough to make end room for Morley, then leaned back and considered the cathedral, wondering, now that I was there, what I could actually do.
Brownie and the girls showed a strong interest in the bum. He was not happy about that.
Most of us have trouble seeing the unexpected. I didn’t expect to be sharing a bench with Niea Syx, cathedral gatekeeper, so I failed to recognize him for half a minute. Of course, he had recognized me as we approached and now wanted to remain unnoticed, which he might manage if he didn’t make a run for it.
“Niea. My man. How you doing?”
Not so good, his body language suggested.
I could not recall the circumstances of his exodus from the Macunado House. I hadn’t put him out the door. Maybe Penny did. “How come you’re out here?”
He gave me a hangdog look worthy of Number Two at her most artfully pathetic, rubbed his left biceps, looked like he blamed it all on me, whatever “it” might be, and said nothing.
I got some mental exercise by jumping to a wrong conclusion. “They busted your ass because we took you when we dragged Almaz and his thugs off.”
Sigh. “No, sir. I got thrown down the steps when those men showed up looking for Magister Bezma. They wouldn’t believe that he isn’t there.”
“Everyone knows the Leading General Select Secretary for Finance never leaves his quarters.” Just trying to be helpfu
l.
“True. Insiders. Which they were not. I thought I was lying. It turned out that I was telling the truth. I think.”
“There it goes again,” Morley said, nervously.
The earth shrugged the tiniest bit, a slight roll more perceptible than before but still barely enough to tweak the nerves. There was no sound with it, neither of breakage nor of panic. It was for sure no serious temblor.
TunFaire hadn’t experienced one of those in decades.
“Wonder what that’s about,” Morley said. I thought he meant the shaking till I noted that he was staring at Chattaree, where tobacco-brown dust had begun to roll out of the windows and doors.
Guard whistles sounded from several directions, the extended “Woo-he-up!” indicating an emergency in progress. A Guardsman needing help puffed on his whistle in shrill blats.
Niea grumbled, “Now they’ve done it.” With no explanation of what “they” might have done. “I don’t want to be anywhere near here when the red tops start picking up the pieces.”
“Damn!” I said, with feeling. Threads of lightning had begun prancing inside the roiling dust, which seemed no less dense despite its expansion outward.
The ground moved again.
“And here come some piece picker-uppers,” Morley breathed. Or maybe he had made a pun and said “peace.” Sometimes he can’t help himself.
Tin whistles, some of them Specials, flickered into existence on all sides, rushing the dusty excitement. None of them, management or honest laborer, seemed especially motivated, however.
They had survived strange stuff in the Cantard. They were alive to see this strange stuff because they had taken time to think before dealing with that strange stuff, back in the day.
The brown dust rolled closer. I suggested, “Why don’t we not stick around for a closer look at that?”
The vote of confidence in my leadership was unanimous. Even Niea joined the rout-though we didn’t run. We strolled briskly, good Karentine subjects who had recalled urgent appointments elsewhere.
