by Glen Cook
The lightning kept playing inside the dust as the cloud spread and became shallower. It crackled and popped behind us as we made with the heels and toes. Fingers of brown, just two inches thick now, caught up and oozed past. The brown remained dense and roiling under a slick surface that recalled liquid mercury. Two-leggers and four, we all avoided contact.
The red tops followed our lead.
Came a fourth tremor, like the involuntary shudder after a sudden, inexplicable chill. The brown began to retreat, ignoring physical law. It left a one-mote-thick walnut discoloration that behaved more like a stain than a layer of dust. It didn’t puff up or transfer when disturbed.
Morley and I watched bolder folks experiment. The girls stayed back, the most unhappy of them still offering soft growls of displeasure and discomfort.
Niea Syx seized the afternoon and made like the good shepherd. On discovering his sudden invisibility, I shrugged. I doubted that he had anything useful to tell us. And we knew where to start a track if we needed to see him.
He would have been handy as a guide had we gone on with the proposed incursion. I took that off the table. There was too much excitement inside the cathedral already. Plus, red tops were gathering in numbers. Whole battalions would be getting in each other’s ways soon.
I offered an alternate proposal. “Let’s leave this to the incompetents already here and yet to appear.” If Barate and friends were in there and stayed healthy, they could get by on Hill privilege. I shouldn’t put my cream-of-the-rabble self out for notice by offering unneeded assistance.
“Then let us be off and away,” Morley said. “And keep putting on a show that will thrill Jon Salvation when he turns it into a drama.”
For a moment I thought he had our red top audience in mind; then the direction of his gaze indicated the little blonde on the parapet of a temple a block east of Chattaree.
Curiouser and curiouser, she.
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Playmate was fine. He was in his little office with Kolda, playing a simple rummy game that, never mind, I couldn’t figure out by watching. Naturally, once I confessed to that, I was invited to open my purse and buy myself a learning experience. Kolda was hiding out from his wife. Playmate fussed over the dogs and gave them treats they didn’t need. Then we moved on, me still thinking about visiting Strafa.
I shifted course to cut through Prince Guelfo Square, to get me a hot sausage. Franklejean was hard at it selling nothing from under a giant knockoff umbrella built with brighter fabrics than anything in the Amalgamated inventory. He had made it himself. He was unapologetic. Amalgamated wouldn’t produce umbrellas in the size he needed.
“I saw nothing. And nor will I ever-unless you try to sell them.”
“I just don’t want to get rained on while I’m working.”
He had nothing interesting to report. In fact, he pressed me, hoping I had something he would find interesting. I gave up the name Orchidia Hedley-Farfoul. That left him puzzled. He knew nothing about her.
My four-legged girls loved the visit. They piled sausage in on top of Playmate’s treats. Vegetarian boy Dotes, though, could work up no enthusiasm for the pork. He claimed, “You’ll have these mutts too fat to waddle.”
“They’re like bears getting ready for the winter.”
Which was true, in a way. Strays have to devour whatever they can whenever they can get it. Who knew when they might eat again?
“Winter is always around the corner. And, speaking of, what corner will you head around once we’re done here?”
For the moment I lacked any urgency. I had this ever-expanding feeling that what I most wanted right then was a nap. Failing that, I wanted to see Strafa. “I don’t know. I’ve lost my train of thinking. Where were we headed after we checked on Playmate?”
“Here, it looked like, then your place, I thought. Don’t ask me, though. I’m just here to keep the pixies off your back.”
While he let some problem with his sweetie cool down. Or fester.
“I think I’ll go to the cemetery.”
“Or to your house.”
“Dollar Dan will do that once he sees where they take Orchidia. Hell, he’s probably there already.” I hoped Singe would find it in her heart to pretend to show some sympathy. “You can go if you want. Belinda might be waiting.”
“I’ll stay with you. The fact that you haven’t been murdered today doesn’t mean that people who hope to see you dead have given up trying to arrange it.”
I started to argue. Contrary had become the Garrett ground state, it seemed. But my butt, with all its marvelous attachments, would have been well and truly deep in a sling repeatedly if people had given me the room I kept whining about wanting.
I’m overly inclined to think that I am as bad as I want to be bad. That I can handle anything that comes my way. But today had shown me that nastier things than me, by miles, were hoofing it around my town, and the tournament was all about bringing the nastiest ones out.
“Garrett shutting up on the macho teen posturing,” I announced. “If you really want to hang out amongst the headstones.”
“Oh yes. Definitely. I’m all about graveyards. I’m looking forward to being a resident someday myself.”
Sarcasm did not become the pretty boy.
The dogs were worn down, but they agreed with Morley. They would stick to the end. Or at least until they dropped.
So we headed south and west, alternately, block by block, till we hit Old King’s Way, which we followed till it T’d at First Wall Road. Once upon a time that had run along the inner foot of the original southern city wall. The cemetery had lain outside. The wall had been demolished long ago. The cemetery was well inside the city now. The sun was out down there, burning dark orange beneath the edge of the remaining overcast.
Morley indicated the sun. “How long will it be before we get another good look at that beast?”
There was that feel in the air. The break in the weather wouldn’t last.
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Ancient sextons cursed with interacting with the ever-troublesome living strained to conceal their displeasure at having to do something once black-hearted me forced them to put aside their tea and chessboard. Not a word of protest was spoken, though. One remembered me from the funeral. I was an Algarda. He was old enough to walk, meaning he knew that regular folks don’t mess with Shadowslinger’s kids.
The other one was more interested in the dogs than me.
Morley noticed. “Do you know these ladies?”
Obviously, the man thought that he did-though they were cleaner and fatter than he remembered.
Morley said, “There isn’t much keeping our friends busy right now, Garrett.” He gestured at the man from the funeral. “You and him go see your wife. This gentleman and I will enjoy a game of chess, a glass of tea, and some conversation about dog breeding.” The old edge was in his voice.
“You’re all back.” It hadn’t been so long since I’d sat a death watch beside his bed.
He had a way to go physically. I still saw the winces and slackenings that betrayed deep pain.
“Forget the wise guy stuff. Do what you have to do.”
He was feeling the pain right now. No doubt pain lay behind the resurgent steel. He wanted to get done and get back. It would be a while yet before he could enjoy my adventures completely. If ever that had been the case, or could be.
“I’ll keep it as short as I can.” Though I had been considering taking several hours just to sit with Strafa, to talk to her, maybe to bleed off the grief and anger I’d been keeping contained.
My companion donned his rain hat and waterproof coat, impatient to move along, be done, and get cozy with his tea and his game again. A fruity odor suggested that he and his associate laced their tea with brandy.
I gestured, go. He went, cooperative because I was an Algarda. I considered letting him know he was too old and stringy for Shadowslinger’s palate. Didn’t seem like he would be amused, though.
The dogs
spread out ahead, concerned about something. They dashed back and forth, continuously consulting. The sexton wasn’t sure about them. They kept him muttering in a foreign language. His cursing increased exponentially when a dozen more dogs showed up, growling and greeting and socializing with my girls. The stay-at-homes were pleased by what they heard from Brownie and Number Two but had things to say themselves that were not so replete with positivity.
Some noise audible only to canine ears suddenly had every head and ear up, the latter twitching. The entire pack began to growl.
My companion became alarmed, too. He charged ahead, as much as an old man’s body would permit. I followed, not in haste.
I had some serious aches and pains.
Cresting a slight rise, we found four unhappy men surrounded by twenty feral dogs. One dog was down, having taken a serious blow from a tool. The men all carried tools.
The dogs were not best pleased. They were reverting to pack-in-the-wild mode. Those men would be more unhappy if I couldn’t get the critters calmed down.
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“They’re trying to break into your tomb,” my companion gasped, astonished that anyone would commit such an atrocity.
“I know who the old guy is.” Magister Bezma’s sidekick and possible brother. I was surprised to see him, though the timing was right if he had collected his thugs and headed here after he and Bezma finished their business with Trivias Smith and Flubber Ducky. But why?
The henchmen were immigrant day laborers taking what work they could get to keep body and soul and family together.
Our advent, reinforcing the dogs, was all the encouragement they needed to start running. I hoped they could pawn their tools.
The dogs let them go but not the older man, whom they backed against the mausoleum door. He swung a crowbar menacingly, to little point. He survived on sufferance.
I warned, “Don’t run! I can’t save you if you give them a quarry.”
My own old man bleated in misery when he saw the damage to the mausoleum door, forced open a crack but not enough to admit anyone. Its hang had been ruined.
Number Two and several friends squeezed inside once I pushed the burglar out of the way.
I told Brownie, “Keep this fool from running but don’t hurt him,” then dropped to a knee beside the injured mutt, an ugly mix of bulldog and beagle. “We’re in luck. Doesn’t look like any permanent damage.” I fought the temptation to touch, to pet. She was wild. She was hurting. She was handling that by showing her teeth and threatening to use them.
I went to the tomb door. Squatting some, grasping its edge, hoisting, shoving, taking baby steps, I moved it enough to let me get by. My sidekick said, “There are lamps and lighters in the alcove to your right.”
I eased inside. He faced off with the captive, whose body language suggested abject surrender. He had had enough. He hadn’t wanted to be involved in the first place. He was just plain thrilled to be out of the game.
He wasn’t so done that he was ready to lie down and die, though, just to where he was ready to let the world get on without his participation.
I lighted a lamp. The folks in charge had been on the job. There were five of those, all with fuel reservoirs full and wicks trimmed with military precision. I let the old man know that I was impressed.
“How about you reward me by hurrying it up, then, Slick? It’s cold out here and I’m too friggin’ old to be dancing with the bad guys, even when they’re feebler than me.” He indicated the captive in case I was too dim to grasp the insult.
“We’ll take care of that. You. Inside with me.” So I could keep an eye on him in case he wasn’t as feeble as he looked. “Don’t move. Don’t speak unless I ask you a question.”
“As you wish, sir.”
I fired up two more lamps, placed them in niches prepared for them. They helped only a little. The space they had to illuminate was huge. Strafa’s coffin was one of nearly a dozen. Many more resided in recesses in the walls. They had verdigris-corroded nameplates on their ends dating back centuries. Algardas had been dying to get in here for ages.
Only the most recently deceased were on display. Once the living forgot who they had been, they got shoved into a wall slot. Plenty of those remained available.
There were eleven coffins out, with room for one more. There hadn’t been a free pedestal the other day. I pointed at the empty. “Sit there.”
The villain sat.
The migration of a coffin into a wall was the only change since my last visit. The bad guys hadn’t gotten to do whatever they’d had in mind.
“Name?” I demanded while using a sleeve to dust the glass separating me from my love. She hadn’t changed. She reminded me of the girl in the story who had been so naive about accepting the free apple. I wished a kiss was enough to bring her back. Only, where to find a prince I could trust to do the necessary and then back off, leaving the girl for me?
I caught a wisp of violet coruscation from the corner of my eye, behind the captive. So. Interesting, that.
Had it been with me all along?
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“Mikon D.-for Dungenes-Stornes.”
“Brother of Meyness B.? Now going by Magister Bezma?”
“First cousin of. Meyness has been getting me into trouble since we wore dresses.” Which said plenty about how old the Stornes boys had to be. Even the rich stopped putting their boy children in dresses before my father was born. “I never could tell him to shove his stupid plans back up the hole where he found them.”
I recalled getting Mikey into stuff, taking total advantage of a little brother who looked up to me in awe.
“What were you up to here?” I stared hard at Strafa, willing her to open her eyes. I would forgive the cruelty of the practical joke if she would just end the game.
Others would not forgive, though. This tournament had claimed too many lives. Orchidia Hedley-Farfoul would add names to the roster of unshriven fallen. Magister Bezma, surely, had a little list of his own.
“Why were you breaking in here?”
“I was supposed to take Furious Tide of Light. I don’t know why. Meyness said he needed her. He didn’t explain except to say that he knew how Constance Algarda’s head worked. He understood the Breaker strategy. With Furious Tide of Light we could win despite Mariska’s defection.”
I stared down at my wife. I heard and understood every word. The shadowed underground rivers of my mind strained to winkle out meaning, but the up-here, smelling-the-stench-of-the-mortal-realm part wasn’t sufficiently engaged to generate follow-up questions.
There was an instant of impatient purple sparkle behind Mikon.
“Meyness kept the whole thing close, I think because he knew how stupid he’d sound if he explained his actual reasoning. But he did think he could make this tournament his own. He thought he knew what it was really about and that it hadn’t worked before only because too many willful people were involved. This time just him and me would be Operators. We would hire done whatever we couldn’t manage ourselves, using Mariska as our go-between.”
I grunted. “What’s the story with the swords and costumes?”
“Those are for the Ritual. At the end. When the power is taken.” He volunteered no more. Since he was in full galloping confession mode I suspected that he didn’t have anything else to give up.
“You snapped that stuff up before they were finished.”
“There was a time problem. The Ritual has to happen just before midnight, when Day of the Dead turns into All-Souls. The Ritual is supposed to include thirteen Operator celebrants and an altar, but he worked out a way to manage with us two and some hired hands. Ten celebrants wouldn’t have done anything but chant, anyway. The chant isn’t critical. When we placed our orders we expected Moonslight and some hirelings to help, but nothing went right. Somebody attacked Furious Tide of Light. People kept getting in the way. The contest spun out of control right away. The first victims were the wrong ones. . ”
“Feder a
nd his friend,” I said.
“Exactly.”
“And the Hedley-Farfoul twins, Dane and Deanne.”
Despite the lighting Mikon’s response was striking. He practically radiated a sickly light.
“You didn’t know about them?”
“No. I did not. It explains why Meyness became desperate to keep me from hearing any news. Bonegrinder. . His enmity would be bad enough. But the Black Orchid. . Do you have a knife? I beg you, give me a blade. I will take it outside. I won’t profane your shrine. But. . I’m a coward. I admit it. No way can I handle what the Black Orchid is going to bring.”
Wow. People inside Hill culture had a total fear on when it came to the Black Orchid.
I’d been around Shadowslinger enough to wonder if Orchidia hadn’t been up to some serious self-promotion, too.
I suggested, “Go to the Guard. Make a deal.”
Relway loved that stuff. This guy had been in deep enough to know some sexy stuff that might be useful when the Al-Khar began butting heads with the Hill.
“Yeah. The Guard. They’re everywhere. They caused more trouble than you did because Meyness discounted them before we started.”
“Probably thought they could be bought the way the Watch could be.”
“Yes.” So. I could see that Cousin Meyness had set his feet on the road to today way back when he was a Breaker himself. The Watch in those days was an oft-drunk fire patrol whose members made more taking bribes than they did from their city salaries.
I said, “I haven’t heard of you before, though several people told us that Magister Bezma had a partner. Where do you fit, really?”
“I’m his cousin. I belong to the Phila Menes Order. I have since I was fifteen. I was a chaplain’s assistant during the war. I missed all the major fighting. I helped Meyness enter the Church as an immigrant named Izi Bezma, saying he was a distant member of the family. He did good work, so his situation kept improving. He never left Chattaree, so he never ran into anyone who might recognize him. For a long time I was the only one who knew, until he got together with Mariska Machtkess again.”
