by Glen Cook
“Bird, your life expectancy is minutes. You don’t shut up you’re going to be creamed chipped squab on toast.” Dean would put together a championship gourmet experiment.
The bird got the message. His inclination toward self-preservation overrode the Dead Man’s low, practical joke kind of humor. For the moment. That was one stupid bird.
All right. I could tuck that triumph in my pocket. So how come I couldn’t get back to sleep? How come some sadistically self-abusive part of me kept insisting it was time to get up and get at it?
“Get at what?” I muttered. I dropped my feet into the same abyss as yesterday. “There ain’t nothing, but nothing, out there that can’t get through the day without me.”
Good morning, Garrett. Please exercise emotional caution today. The house is being observed. I believe I have your presence adequately masked. To maintain the illusion I must have you remain placid. Please refrain from these unproductive outbursts.
“Then don’t provoke me,” I grumbled. I staggered around and fell into some clothes I found lying around, mostly what I had shucked in the middle of the night. They were not completely ripe. They would do.
I took my life in my hands, peeked out my window. “Damn!”
Garrett! Calmly, please.
“It’s bright out there.” Whatever happened to all those gloomy, overcast days we’d been having? The world seemed to be getting warmer.
Stay away from the window. Someone might see the curtain move and reason that you are here after all — particularly since the movement came at your window.
It was going to be one of those days, was it? Nags punctuated by nagging? I reconsidered my bed. It had been so nice in there, so toasty warm. My dreams had been of a paradise where the motives of all the beautiful women were blatant and straightforward and the “me key, you lock” symbolism was direct and obvious. There were beer taps everywhere, and you would gain five pounds a day on the food if you ate it in the waking world.
By jingo June, as Granny used to say — I did hear her say that once — I ought to get my buddies together so we could cook us up our own religion. Most of them believed in booze and bimbos, and some enlightened religions already considered that sort of stuff important enough to rate its own underling gods and goddesses. Star was one example. Maybe we could get Star to jump the Godoroth ship by offering her a better contract.
A diffuse wave of disgust emanated from downstairs. “You don’t like the way I think, quit poking around inside my head.”
I was not seeking adolescent fantasization. I was trying to reexamine your experiences of yesterday.
“You were playing voyeur because you can’t think that stuff up for yourself. The best you can come up with is bug parades and goofball political theories.”
I cannot deny what is self-evident. I am a creature of intelligence and intellect, disinclined toward obsession with pleasures of the flesh.
“You can’t deny what is self-evident, which is that you couldn’t do anything about it if you wanted, so you just sit there making sour remarks about those of us who still have a little fire in our blood.”
While we amused ourselves, I negotiated the stairway, an epic adventure any morning early. I trudged into the kitchen and drew a mug of tea from the pot. Dean was at the stove. He offered me a look of exasperation, like I had ruined his whole day by not staying in bed so he could experience the enjoyment of rousting me out. I tapped every reservoir of contrariness within me, put on my brightest Charlie Sunshine face, chirped, “Good morning, Dean. Did you sleep well?”
He glowered a deep black glower, sure I was putting him on. “Breakfast will be a while yet.”
I poured myself a refill. “Take your time. Me and the big guy got schemes to scheme and cons to crack.” I was sure that, immortal players or not, there were charades going on in this temple squabble. Overall, the Shayir probably were more straight with me, and one sex of them sure was friendly, but I was sure we didn’t have the full map in front of us yet. “Dean?”
“Sir?”
“Did the wedding go well? Was the trip worth it?” I could not recall having asked before,
“It all went quite well. Your gift was received with considerable pleasure. Rebecca expressed amazement that you even remembered her, let alone thought so well of her.”
“There was a time when neither one of you let me forget for a minute. That gift was a sigh of relief.” Back then Dean’s whole mission in life, it seemed, was to get me married to one of his numerous nieces.
A hint of a smirk pranced around the corners of the old boy’s mouth. He said, “It was an interesting journey. We even fell afoul of highwaymen on the return leg, gentlemen so inept they didn’t know what to do when they found out that everyone aboard the coach was stone-broke. I enjoyed myself a great deal, but it’s good to be back home.”
“Yeah. No place like.” Especially for me. “Sounds like somebody pounding on the door.”
Garrett. Please step into your office and close the door.
“Huh?”
Our visitors are Mr. Tharpe, Miss Winger, and an associate of Mr. Dotes’ known as Agonistes. They will leave shortly. I should like them to depart convinced that you are not on these premises.
That sounded like a reasonable idea, but who would want to admit it to Himself?
Who was this Agonistes? I didn’t know anybody by that name in Morley’s crew.
“Agonistes” is what you people call a street name.
“Oh. Silly me. I really thought somebody’s mother would hang a tag like that on him.”
Dean passed me, headed for the front door, wiping floury hands on a dishrag. I ducked into my office, which is a large, messy closet across the hall from the Dead Man’s spacious suite. I swung the door most of the way shut. I left it cracked both so I could hear what was said in the hall and so I could peek at the Dead Man’s visitors. “Dean, remember to keep an eye on Winger. She’ll try to kype something.”
“I always do, sir. All of your friends.”
He started fumbling with locks and latches and chains, taking away any chance I would have had to speak on behalf of my friends.
The man’s birth name was Claude-Ned Blodgett.
I didn’t know that name, either, but I could see why he would take up just about anything else. Who was going to be scared of a gangster named Claude-Ned Blodgett? Was he going to pop you with a farm implement?
Agonistes, though, had a kind of self-selected sound to it. Names picked up on the street don’t usually come that dramatic. Pretty often, they really sound plain stupid. Our great wizard lords on the Hill pick their own business names, and they always choose something like Raver Styx.
Winger started barking before Dean got the door all the way open. I hoped the Dead Man just had her doing legwork. She could complicate things real bad if she got in far enough to get ideas for some scheme.
30
“Garrett here?” Winger demanded.
“I fear not, Miss.”
“I’d swear I heard his voice.”
“Holy hooters!” the Goddamn Parrot squawked. “Look at them gazoombies!” He managed a creditable wolf whistle. Winger is blessed. Nobody will ever doubt that she is female, despite her six-foot stature.
“If Garrett wasn’t my best friend I’d throttle that critter,” Winger said.
I wanted to jump out and tell her not to hold back on my account, go for it, turn the little vulture into mock chicken soup.
Though he knew I would do no such thing, the Dead Man did brush me with a cautionary touch. Up front, the Goddamn Parrot continued to flatter Winger. Saucerhead’s rumbling laugh filled the hallway. “I think he’s in love, Winger. I bet you Garrett would let you take him home.” He knew.
“Shee-it.”
“Think of the advertising. That bird around wherever you went.”
“Double shee-it.”
I leaned in an effort to look through the narrow crack by the door hinges. I wanted to see this Agon
istes character. I didn’t get much of a look, though he waited for Winger and Saucerhead to go into the Dead Man’s room first. He didn’t look like a thug. He looked like a lawyer, which is a whole different species of villain. But, then, Morley is trying to polish his image these days.
I listened carefully. I couldn’t catch a sound from the Dead Man’s room. Dean went back to the kitchen, prepared a tray with tea and muffins. My mouth watered. I was hungry. I resisted temptation. Those three did have to leave the house convinced I was still on the run. Dean wouldn’t be able to go out at all now. We would have to survive on whatever we had on hand. Unless Dean had managed some marketing, that would not be much. I had eaten out while the old boy was gone.
On his way back to the Dead Man’s room, Dean stepped in and quietly handed me tea and several hot muffins. He winked, crossed the hall. Before the Dead Man’s door shut I heard Winger carping about me being so cheap I wouldn’t serve a decent breakfast.
Winger is one of those people you love because they have style. Anyone else who did the things she does would have no friends. Winger does it and you just sort of sigh and chuckle and shake your head and say, “That’s Winger.”
That kind of person always irritates me — along with guys who never get dirty or rumpled — but I fall under their spell as easily as anybody.
I munched a muffin with one hand and felt the stitches in my scalp with the other. They were tender. Surprise, surprise. But when I didn’t touch them they itched. At least my hangover was long gone. I wished I could sneak into the kitchen for a brew. But there wasn’t a drop in the house.
Oh my. No beer. And I couldn’t go out. And Dean couldn’t go out. Even having Dean have Saucerhead bring in a keg wouldn’t work. Nobody out there would believe the keg was for Dean or the Dead Man.
That led to the really uncomfortable question. Were those god gangs likely to come play rough? Would they bust in here just to poke around?
“They’re gods, Garrett,” I reminded myself. “Maybe they aren’t as powerful and all-knowing as they want people to think and most people usually think gods are, but they’re still a long way up on us mortals.” I could not see them having much trouble figuring out where I was.
And that being the case, why shouldn’t I just cross the hall and hand Saucerhead a few marks and a nice fee for fetching me a keg?
Continue to assume you are the focus of a mighty confidence scheme, Garrett. It will help if you believe we are not powerless in this.
I jumped. For a moment after the touch opened, I expected it to be Nog is inescapable. I’m not sure why.
What was that all about? He did not expand upon his remark, which only indicated he was monitoring my thoughts, something he wasn’t supposed to do except in extreme circumstances.
Dean stepped in. “More tea?”
“If you can manage. What’s going on over there?”
“He has them collecting rumors so he can compare and collate them and test some theory about the true intentions of Glory Mooncalled.”
My expression scared Dean. He grabbed my mug and platter and scooted. I squeezed the edge of my desk so hard I ought to have crushed fingerprints into the wood.
I wanted to blow up in a shrieking rage. I wanted to stomp around the house breaking things. I wanted to use words my mother would have disowned me for even thinking. I wanted to grab a certain humongous sack of petrified camel snot and drag him into the street, where he could become snacks for homeless and otherwise disadvantaged vermin. I couldn’t do any of that without giving myself away, so I sat there rocking back and forth and making weird, soft noises that could get me committed to the mental ward at the Bledsoe Imperial Charity Hospital.
I had a feeling Dean had just let slip the real con going on around here. My esteemed sidekick was using my concern about my own dire situation to gull me into thinking I was getting something for my money when it was really him getting something else.
Child and Loghyr, living and dead, I have been in this world more than a dozen centuries, Garrett. Never have I encountered a creature as cynical and selfish and penurious as you. There are great changes stirring. True marvels and wonders are transforming today into history out there. And you insist we all focus completely on a squabble that may work itself out just fine without you or me.
I didn’t shriek. I didn’t foam at the mouth. I didn’t go over there and choke him. For what good would that do me? It would not have any effect on him. And until his guests departed, I could do nothing but fume and paint mental pictures of vast, complex, and exquisite torments to try out on the Dead Man.
Were you to distract me so, I might not be able to maintain the webs of deception I have woven to keep your presence here concealed.
He could deal with me and his guests both because he has more than one mind. Which mainly means he can be a pain in the butt several places at the same time. Not what I count as a big plus talent.
The fact that I could fight back only in the darkness of my heart only made my situation more unbearable.
Perhaps you should spend less bile upon me and invest more thought in the situation you fancy has engulfed you.
Standard fare from the self-declared brains of the outfit. Tell me to figure it out for myself.
Not easy. The situation was unlike any I had faced before. With me identified as the divine key, there was no mystery involved — unless it was why I had gotten trapped in the first place.
I did not like being the key, but I believed the Dead Man was right. Though No-Neck had made nothing of it, I was able to stroll right into a temple that was supposed to be sealed so tight that gods couldn’t get inside.
How had I become the key? When had I? How come I hadn’t been consulted? The virgins who give birth to the children of gods, the men compelled to beat into those sprats the principles of offering accounting and believer manipulation later, those folks always got an advisory visit from a messenger angel before the fact. Just to smooth the road, you know. Me, I’d gotten diddly. Squat. Zilch plus zip. Hell, I was out of pocket on this thing. And I could be helping people I actually liked to handle problems I actually cared about.
Not that I wanted to dive into the Weider family troubles. That just looked less treacherous than where I was at now.
The Dead Man may have been amused by my quandary, but he was preoccupied with his visitors. He spared me no more attention while he extracted whatever it was he wanted from the crew, then filled them up with new instructions and sent them on their way.
Winger was the last to leave. Of course. Dean shepherded her carefully, stopped her from entering my office, then stayed between her and anything valuable that she might find too tempting.
31
You do overestimate Miss Winger’s cupidity and amorality.
The front door had not yet closed behind the overestimated lady, who had started swapping compliments with the Goddamn Parrot. I had to wait till the door slapped her behind before I could respond.
“I really doubt that.”
She has a code of right and wrong. She sticks to it firmly.
“Yeah. Her code is, If it ain’t nailed down it’s hers to carry away. And if it can be pried loose it ain’t nailed down.”
You do the woman an injustice. But, then, you feel you have been through trying times and are justified in demonstrating a foul temper.
“It’s no feeling, Smiley, it’s fact. And my temper is going to turn even more foul if you keep indulging your hobbies while I’m getting batted around by characters who actually make you look attractive.”
I stormed across the hall, burst into the Dead Man’s room. Dean entered behind me, stood around nervously waiting to find out what was going on. He was scared. However casual or indifferent the Dead Man seemed, Dean’s intuition told him we had big trouble. Usually he copes with big trouble by going wild in the kitchen.
Though you want to believe otherwise, I have given your god problem some attention. Your friend Linda Lee brought a cartlo
ad of books here last evening. She and your friend Tinnie and her friend Alyx and their friend Nicks spent hours reading for me. I learned very little that you do not already know. Neither the Godoroth nor the Shayir pantheons represent golden examples of the brilliantly absurd natural imaginings of humanity. If some unimaginably great beings were to be connoisseurs of absurdities, these would form the centerpieces of their collections. These pantheons slithered from the bottom depths of lowest-common-denominator minds. Thud and blunder, sex and scandal, and afflict your mortal followers with pestilences and famines, disasters and humiliations, for fun, is what they are all about. And in that, of course, they mirror the souls in their care. All gods are shaped by the hearts of their believers.
What a sight that must have been, the Dead Man surrounded by beautiful women reading aloud, him absorbing the information they provided while smugly ignoring the fact that I was flailing around on the bottom in the deep smelly stuff somewhere else. And he had been aware of my plight — the Goddamn Parrot, having abandoned me to my fate, had flown home to him.
There is one aspect in need of deeper consideration. The girl who brought you out of Shayir captivity does not appear in any recorded account of either pantheon. Nor does your air-mobile infant. Which, by the by, is usually called a cherub.
“Hell, I remember cherubs now.” They were part of the mythological hardware of my mother’s religion. Mostly they just appeared in religious art.
They are part of the background populations of divine beings common to most religions springing from the same roots as the Church.
So he still had a spying eye inside my head.
For efficiency’s sake only, Garrett. About the girl. It is your feeling that she is the by-blow of either Lang or Imar, her mother having been a mortal woman?
“She didn’t tell me a whole lot about herself.”
No. She did not. And you were too taken by the imaginary possibilities of your circumstances to try to elicit any useful information.
“Hey!...”
