Faded Steel Heat

by Glen Cook

  The quest for profit makes for strange bedfellows.

  88

  Spooky people were waiting in a back room. Belinda Contague and Pular Singe sat beside a crippled table with rags piled on top. “What’s this?”

  Morley let me have it behind the ear with a sap.

  I said, “Wha de grungle frunz ya?...” It made perfect sense to me but apparently not to anyone else. At least nobody tried to answer me.

  The darkness never really came. Not entirely. I remained vaguely aware of being manhandled and womanhandled and rathandled and half-elf handled around till I was the vain wearer of a tonsorial array fit to embarrass most guys who haunt alleys for a living. Puddle stuffed everything in a bag — including my proud tools of mayhem — and vanished. Morley and Belinda tied me to the rickety chair formerly occupied by Pular Singe. Singe said something apologetic and drifted off after Puddle.

  The scow of consciousness pitched and rolled across heavy seas. The thump had reawakened every headache I’d enjoyed lately. I talked some more but only a drunk would have understood. Or maybe Singe. I’d understood her.

  Morley said something about if I was the real thing, he’d treat me to the gourmet best of The Palms. I could not express my joy.

  Belinda’s apologies sounded more promising.

  The two of them rubbed me all over with silver.

  A dwarfish voice gobbled something. Morley responded in the same tongue. Belinda began letting me loose. I tried to turn her over my knee but had barely strength enough to raise a hand. I said something in a tongue that sounded sufficiently dwarfish to me but drew no response from anyone else.

  I understood Belinda when she said, “You hit him too hard.”

  “I hit him just right. Too hard and he wouldn’t be breathing.”

  “I think you scrambled his brains.”

  “Be a little hard to mix them up more than they already are. He’ll come out of it.”

  Bless him for his optimism. I would take it into account when I got even for all his abuses.

  “Sorry,” he told me, not sounding the least bit contrite. “We had to make sure Puddle got the real you. Been several Garrett sightings lately and I’m sure that, talented as you are, you’re not yet able to be two places at once.”

  “I’m gonna work on it, though,” I promised. “I’m gonna be having dinner with Relway and Colonel Block while I’m stuffing that talking vulture down your throat. Sideways.”

  Some of that dribbled out in comprehensible Karentine. Morley seemed surprised by my attitude. But he didn’t let it get in his way. “Something that looked like you turned up at The Palms last night asking for Belinda.”

  I glanced at Belinda. She was still hanging out there? “Not what you think, Garrett,” she said. “Crask and Sadler did such a good job I can still barely move.”

  Morley continued, “We knew it wasn’t you right away.”

  “Uhn?” So a shapeshifter went there pretending to be me. If there was an easy way to recognize one, I wanted to know. Later. After my head stopped hurting.

  “Sarge offered you a mixed pepper platter. One of his little jokes. But you took it and dug right in.”

  “Now I know they’re completely stupid.” Even a hog has more sense than to eat peppers. Morley’s pepper platter is a gorgeous mix of colors and shapes. Kind of like parrot on a plate. Just the stench, though, would’ve had me gagging — if I’d been into self-abuse far enough to let Sarge shove something that nasty under my nose in the first place. “What did you do with it?” In a few hours one of those critters could destroy a reputation I’ve worked on for years.

  “We caught him but he got away as soon as we turned our backs. Those things don’t have bones, apparently. It got out through a crack barely big enough for a cat.”

  My brain was up to about half speed. And I had a cup in hand, brought by the dwarf, which smelled strongly of boiled willow bark. I’d only have to suffer the headache another hour, then make sure I never ranged too far from a chamber pot. “Let me see. It was after Belinda. With harm in mind?”

  “We took more hardware off it than we did off you just now.”

  “Stranger and stranger. We have shapeshifters attacking the Weiders. We have them attacking The Call. We have them going after Belinda...” I stopped. My mouth hung open. A small but significant fact had caught up. “Belinda. You’ve been at Morley’s place since we dug you out of that tomb?”

  “Mostly sleeping.”

  “But you’ve been in touch with your people.”

  “As much as necessary.”

  “How about with Marengo North English?”

  “North English? Why would I?...”

  I raised a paw. “Wait.” I let the brain limp along for a minute. “The Call tried to bring on their season of Cleansing last night.”

  “It fizzled,” Morley said. He showed lots of pointy teeth in a wicked grin. He wasn’t disappointed.

  “While the rest of his gang were having a good time bopping heads and busting shop doors Marengo North English was up north on the edge of Elf Town expecting to meet Belinda for a night’s indulgence in the labors of love.”

  “What?” she barked. “How could?...”

  “He got a message. It told him to meet you up there. He believed it was real.” I’d believed it was real when he told me. “Men sometimes surrender to wishful thinking.” If I’d thought about her condition, I’d have been suspicious as soon as North English mentioned getting the message. Her family owned tenements in the area. It seemed a handy trysting place if you thought in sneak-around terms. Obviously, Marengo did. “When he got there a gang dressed up as righsists tried to murder him. They got interrupted by a gang of dwarves looking for rightsists to pound.”

  “A marvelous irony,” Morley observed, absolutely straight of face.

  “I thought so myself.” I managed a feeble smile. The first weak efforts of the tea had begun to make my fingertips tingle and my headache less assertive. “There is a common thread in everything,” I said. “However confusing. Shapeshifters. All evidently members of a group of commando mercenaries once known as Black Dragon Valsung.”

  “What about Crask and Sadler?” Belinda asked. “They aren’t shapechangers.”

  “Maybe I’m not thinking as clearly as I imagined.” My headache gave a particularly unpleasant throb. Probably Crask and Sadler wishing me evil from their cell, if they were still healthy enough to entertain wishes. “They were hired by shapeshifters.” Just to keep my theory alive.

  “Or by a somebody who hired the shifters, too,” Morley said, knowing that would put a twist on the evidence that I wouldn’t like.

  I grunted. “Keep in mind that Glory Mooncalled has got to be shoehorned in here somehow, too. I’m pretty sure.” Seeing those centaurs had convinced me. Organized, disciplined, military centaurs always have something to do with Glory Mooncalled. No other commander had ever been able to to hold their attention long enough to sell them on the military virtues. No other captain ever got them to fight for ideas instead of money or plunder.

  Pular Singe eased into the room diffidently. I wondered what had become of Fenibro. Maybe she’d decided she could get along without the boyfriend. I had yet to see her affliction handicap her very much. “The watchers have followed the parcel of clothing.” She spoke slowly and carefully. Her diction was the equal of Fenibro’s. She was proud of herself. “I will have no trouble tracking any but one. One leaves no trail at all.”

  I frowned at Morley. He shrugged. Belinda said, “It shouldn’t take them long to figure out that Puddle doesn’t have Garrett’s bones in that sack.”

  “Point taken. Can you walk, Garrett?”

  “In circles.”

  Pular Singe said, “The one who leaves no trail is like the one who pretended to be...” She pointed at me. “That one had no scent, either.”

  Interesting. Could that be a way to detect changers? Add a ratman to your bodyguard?

  89

  “Who
had a chance to plant something on you?” Morley asked. We were headed toward Playmate’s for real. Dotes was the only one of us walking normally. At a glance we must have looked like beggars. I was dressed the part.

  The clothes I’d been wearing lately all came from the Weider place. All Tad’s stuff. Could have been anyone there though the list of suspects that occurred to me was very short. And it had to be somebody at the Weider mansion. Nowhere else had anyone had a chance to get to all the clothes. And only a few people there had known I was getting them.

  The actual mechanics did not interest me much. Somewhere in each pair of trousers, perhaps, would be a scrap of paper or a loose button with a spell attached. I could round up a dozen half-baked hedge wizards in an hour who would sell me something similar for enough to buy a bottle of wine. There would be some gimmick like an enchanted tuning fork or a feather floating in a bowl of mineral oil that would point at me all the time.

  “It’s starting to come together,” I said. “I don’t know who or why but I’m beginning to sniff out a how.”

  “Well?” Morley asked after I failed to go on.

  I turned to Pular Singe. “Singe. The parade following me... following Puddle and my stuff. Was the shapeshifter the one who was actually on my trail, with everyone else following him?”

  Singe had to think about it. Although she was intensely interested, she hadn’t been included in on everything so wasn’t sure what mattered. Also, some of what she had was human stuff that made little sense to ratfolk, anyway.

  “The one who had no scent. Yes.”

  Morley asked, “What’s that look mean, Garrett?”

  “It means the haze is clearing. The clothes were marked so I could be tracked and watched. By shapeshifters. The clothes were delivered straight from the Weider place. Before the engagement party. But there were no shapeshifters inside the house before the party preparations began. Belinda. You promise me you didn’t have anything to do with the attack on Marengo North English?”

  “I promise, darling. Cross my heart and hope to die. Though I would’ve done it if it needed doing.”

  “Does that extend to all his crackpot pals? The human rights movement lost several big names.”

  “I’d reached an understanding with those people. They would stay off our turf. They hadn’t had time to violate it. I’m sure they would’ve gotten around to it, though.”

  “Not even using Crask and Sadler?”

  “I’m not as hotheaded as you think, Garrett. I considered that. I decided that the Marengo I met thought too much of himself and his prejudices to have hired those two. He’d use his own people. I suspect that argument holds for other rightsists chieftains as well. First try, at least.”

  I recalled Tama telling me they were having trouble finding a librarian because Marengo and the other big fish were reluctant to pay actual wages. I muttered, “That fits.”

  “What does?”

  “Singe. How would you go about tracking the one who leaves no scent?” I added deaf sign so we were sure to meet on a common border between our languages.

  Pular Singe was a serious young woman, determined to get the most out of the abilities she had. She would go far if she remained motivated. Desire and determination do seem as important as raw talent in this world. She thought hard. “I would track those who follow it. The sight-hunters. If they do not give up that when they discover that you have outwitted it.”

  I hadn’t outwitted anybody but myself lately. Didn’t seem to be much point in reminding Singe, though.

  Morley and Belinda both sneered at me when Singe was looking the other way. Friends always have to get those little digs in, just to let you know they love you. The evidence suggests that the whole world loves me.

  “No point me hiding out at Playmate’s,” I said. “If they’ve done any digging into my background, they’ll know we’re friends. I’ll go to the Weider place.” I’d abandoned hope of getting back to The Pipes. It was getting dark. “Singe... Where’d she go?”

  “Off to tail your tail, probably,” Morley said.

  “She’s infatuated, Garrett,” Belinda chided. “It happens to a lot of women when they first meet you. This one’s still at that stage where she’ll do any damn fool thing to make you like her back. Give her a week. Reality will catch up.”

  They both had a good snicker. So did something on a windowsill two stories overhead. Morley failed to catch the flash of green and yellow and blue and red as the little buzzard took off, but I did. Possibly I was supposed to, now that it knew where I could be found later.

  90

  “Pardon the expression but you look like shit on a stick,” Max told me. “I’ve seen better-dressed bums. What happened to the clothes we gave you?”

  Gilbey said, “That’s what he’s come about.” Manvil was a little cool.

  “I didn’t turn up here sometime in the last twenty hours and do something unpleasant, did I?”

  “No. Why?” Gilbey was just tired.

  “There was a copy of me running around trying to do naughty things. And you seem a little standoffish.”

  “Excuse me. Unintentional. Possibly it’s because you haven’t gotten anywhere. Or because bad things happen when you’re around.”

  I took it like a man. It was true. “I think that’s about to change. It’s coming together. What I want to know right now is who handled the clothing you sent me. Because somebody tagged them all with a tracking spell that let the shapeshifters stick to me wherever I went.” Too bad I couldn’t be two places at once. That would be a really useful skill in my racket.

  “Genord,” Max said. “Gerris Genord handled the clothing.” And as soon as he said that I recalled Genord being mentioned at the time. The evidence was there. Maybe I’d gotten bopped on the noggin a time too many. Maybe I ought to stick to working for the brewery.

  The news relieved me some. I hadn’t wanted to suspect Gilbey. I liked the guy. “Maybe a connection with the shifters is why Genord overreacted when Lance and Ty caught him sneaking in. Maybe there really was somebody at the door, somebody he didn’t want to be seen with... How would he be connected with them? We know he wasn’t a shifter.”

  I’d already recognized one commonality between Genord and Black Dragon. The commando connection. Whether or not he seemed the type Genord had had an armband that was worn by a small freecorps made up of former commandos. Once the fair-haired thugs of The Call, the Brotherhood Of The Wolf had fallen out of favor since Colonel Theverly’s arrival. But I was willing to bet they were still in business, still associated with Marengo North English. And a shapeshifter had been flushed at The Pipes. “Uhm?”

  Gilbey repeated, “I said, ‘Why not ask Genord?’ The Guard do have him in custody, don’t they?”

  I couldn’t imagine why they wouldn’t. But I didn’t feel like walking back up to the Al-Khar. I’d put too many miles on me already today. “Can my friends and I get space to rest for a while?” The willow-bark tea was wearing off. I hurt. And I needed a nap.

  “Find them a place, Manvil,” Weider said. His tone suggested he’d begun to grow disappointed in me, too. I didn’t blame him. I was disappointed in me myself.

  Carefully failing to alert the staff to our presence Gilbey installed all three of us in a guest room probably reserved for visiting tradesmen. Belinda he failed to recognize. Morley he knew only by distasteful type. He remained rigorously polite throughout.

  Gentlemen that we are, Morley and I let Belinda have the one narrow bed. I took the bedclothes to make a pallet for me. Dotes wasn’t in a napping mood. He kept muttering about how trying to do a small favor had become a career. I asked, “You want to make yourself useful while I’m snoring, work this out. What could you do with a brewery? Besides make beer?”

  “Why?”

  “That’s where this mess started. The shapeshifters wanted to replace the Weiders. Which makes sense only if they wanted control of the brewery.” I snuggled down and went to sleep. The floor was softer tha
n the most yielding cobblestone.

  A toe ground into my ribs. I didn’t have to open my eyes to know it belonged to Belinda. Only a woman would use a toe like a forefinger. A man would just kick you.

  I grunted.

  “That’s four hours, Garrett. Dotes and I don’t have a life to devote to your snoring, entertaining as it is. If I’m out of touch much longer I’m going to find myself out of touch permanently.”

  I sat up, groggy and disoriented. But I remembered, “I wanted up sooner than this.”

  “You needed the sleep,” Morley said. “You really ought to go home and stay till you’re completely recovered. You look a little ragged.”

  Maybe I did. People kept mentioning it.

  I pulled myself together. Belinda looked ragged, too. I felt a twinge of guilt. She needed rest worse than I did. But here she was chasing wild geese with me. “There something going on that you guys forgot to mention?”

  Morley looked at me askance. Belinda ignored me. Mostly.

  “I appreciate you ambushing me and getting me loose from whoever was following me.” I rubbed the back of my head. “I think. But I don’t see why you bothered.”

  Morley shrugged. Belinda, without looking me in the eye, said, “The ratgirl insisted. She was scared those people might do something bad to you.”

  I smelled a scheme. Some kind of three-cornered deal between the Outfit, Reliance, and Morley Dotes, that would put me right in the middle. I hoped their little hearts weren’t broken when I wouldn’t go along.

  Morley sneered. “I don’t know how you do it, Garrett. That Singe would gleefully follow you into Hell. And be your love slave besides.”

  Sourly, putting herself together for travel, Belinda said, “And that blond bimbo walked right in here a while ago. She was really put out because you weren’t alone.”

  “Alyx? Alyx is just a spoiled kid.”

  Morley grinned at me and flashed me his own version of the raised eyebrow trick.

  “Maybe,” Belinda begrudged. “She did come back with some food.”