Petty Pewter Gods

PETTY PEWTER GODS

Garrett P.
I. Book 8

by Glen Cook

TunFaire is in a state of unrest; with the sudden end of the war in the Cantard, returning former soldiers are at odds with the half-breeds and immigrants who have taken their places in society. Garrett, however, has his own problems to worry about-he gets knocked out, brought before a group of small-time gods known as the Godoroth, and forced into working for them. The goal: find the “key” to the one remaining temple up for grabs in TunFaire, and do so before the Shayir, the Godoroth’s rivals. The Shayir find out about the Godoroth’s plans. The Shayir capture Garrett and give him their side of the story. Only with the help of a renegade Shayir called Cat does Garrett manage to escape.

Glen Cook

Petty Pewter Gods

ROC

A ROC Book published by New American Library, and the Penguin Group

Penguin Books USA Inc., 175 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

Penguin Books Ltd., 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England

Penguin Books Australia Ltd., Ringwood, Victoria, Australia

Penguin Books Canada Ltd. 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontarion, Canada M4V 3B2

First published by Roc, an imprint of Durton Signet, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.

First Printing: November, 1995

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This 
ePub edition v1.0 by Dead^Man Jan, 2011

Copyright © Glen Cook 1995

Cover art by Tim Hildebrandt All rights reserved.

REGISTERED TRADEMARK

Printed in the United States

ISBN: 0-451-45478-2

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If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed: to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

1

I greeted the morning the only way that makes sense. I groaned. I groaned some more as I pried me off the sheet. Several thousand maniacs were raising hell out in the street. I muttered dreadful threats, dropped my feet into the abyss beside my bed. My threats didn’t scare up any peace.

Pain blazed from my right temple to my left, ricocheted, clattered around inside my skull. I must have had a great time. I told me, “You got to quit drinking that cheap beer.”

The guy jacking his jaw was yakking way too loud. I clapped a hand over his mouth. He shut up. I used my other hand to open a curtain a peek. I had some morning-mad notion that by looking I could grab a clue about all that racket.

A club of sunshine whacked me right between the eyes. Like to laid me out. Gah! An ill omen for sure. These bright days are never kind. Everybody I ran into would be just like the weather: warm and sunny. Argh! I was in the mood for low overcast and light drizzle, maybe with a frigid south wind.

I peeled layers of fried skin off my eyeballs, took another look. Where there is life there is hope.

“Well.” Across Macunado, standing out like she might be the source of the brightness, was a trim piece of work who would have no trouble making the short list for girl of my dreams. She looked right at me, like she knew I was watching. My toes curled. Wow!

I didn’t notice the human rights guys and their ugly banners shoving dwarves and elves aside as they chased a gang of centaur refugees, flinging bricks and stones. I didn’t chuckle when some fool bounced a rock off a fourteen-foot troll’s beak and took up a brief career as a human club. Just another day of political dialogue in my hometown.

I was focused. Maybe I was in love. Again.

She had all the right stuff in all the right places in absolutely perfect proportion. She was a small thing, not a rat’s whisker over five feet, and of the redheaded tribe. I would have bet the deed that she had green eyes. I drooled. I wondered what madness was loose upon the earth, that all those lunatics down there weren’t dropping their sticks and stones and surrounding her, panting gales of garlicky breath.

“Whoa, Garrett,” I muttered, after the curtain slipped from numb fingers and broke the crackling magic connecting my eyes with hers. “Where have we heard all this before?” Female is my weakness. Pretty redhead will do me in every time.

Oh, but what a delicious failing!

I wrestled with my clothes for a minute before daring another look. She was gone. Where she had stood, a drunken one-armed war veteran was trying to assault an even drunker centaur. The centaur was getting the best of it because he had more legs to keep him off the ground.

That troll must have been in a bad mood anyway. He bellowed his intention of clearing the street of anyone who didn’t have green skin. He had a good work ethic, too.

Down the way Mrs. Cardonlos and her broom vigorously defended the stoop of her rooming house from fugitives. How would she blame this on me? I was confident that she could find a way. Too bad she couldn’t saddle that broom and fly away.

Some dreams arrive stillborn. There wasn’t a sign of that redhead anywhere.

But nightmares always come true.

Instead of young and gorgeous I spied old and homely and not even female.

Old Dean, my resident cook, housekeeper, and professional nag, was home from his journey north to make sure one of his numerous ugly duckling nieces didn’t weasel out of her wedding plans. He was standing at the foot of the front steps. He stared up at the house with pinch-lip disapproval.

I shambled toward the stairs. Somebody had to let him in.

Dean’s knock set the Goddamn Parrot to squawking obscenities.

Garrett!
Oh, boy. That was my sidekick, the Dead Man, only recently awakened for the first time in months. He had a lot of vinegar stored up.
Kindly set aside your sensual maunderings and still that horrible thumping.

It was, for sure, going to be one of those days.

2

T. G. Parrot
 
—
whose given name is Mr. Big
 
—
started whooping as I worked the latch. “Help! On, please, Mister, don’t hurt me no more.” He sounded like a terrified child. He thought it was great fun trying to get me lynched.

Mr. Big was a practical joke that had been played upon me by my alleged friend Morley Dotes, who must have spent years teaching that bird bad manners and worse language.

Dean wrinkled his nose as he pushed inside. “Is that
thing
still here? And what
is
that dreadful odor?”

By “thing” he meant the bird. I pretended to misunderstand. “He was too heavy for me to move by myself.” The Dead Man goes somewhat over four hundred pounds. “Maybe he’s getting ripe. You better work on his room first thing.” Dean hates the Dead Man’s room. He doesn’t like being in the presence of a corpse, possibly because that rubs his nose in his own mortality.

Your sense of humor has putrefied.

Dean, of course, didn’t receive the Dead Man’s mind message. Wouldn’t have been fun for His Nibs if he caused a reaction that the old man understood.

I didn’t pay him any mind. That always irks him. I was preoccupied, anyway. Still looking outside, I noticed that the redhead was back, watching from across the street. Our gazes met. That energy crackled. Down the block my favorite neighbor, the widow Cardonlos, spotted my open doorway. She pointed, jabbered, probably telling one of her tenants that I was the linchpin of all the evils plaguing our street.

Her mind would not stretch any farther.

Other than making herself a boil on the bottom of my happiness, she did not much matter in my life.

Dean expelled one of his mighty, put-upon sighs. He dropped his duffel, stood there shaking his head. He wasn’t three steps inside, but he had to assure me that his absence had been a domestic disaster. As had been inevitable.

I looked for the girl again. Redheads are trouble. Always. But that kind of trouble looked real appetizing.

Gone again, damn it. A mob of street rowdies had come between us, pursuing the ethnic debate with club and brickbat. Enterprising folk of several tribes tagged along, hawking sausages and sweetmeats and souvenirs to the participants. Never is there an event so wild, so dire or disgusting but what some entrepreneur can create collectible memorabilia.

Story of my life. Find my true love and lose her in a matter of minutes, while being tormented by a hangover and a carping housekeeper.

What were you gawking at?

“Huh?” You don’t usually get much expression out of the Dead Man’s mind messages. This time he seemed puzzled. “A girl.” He ought to be able to figure that just because I was drooling.

More puzzled.
I see nothing but chaos.

Neither did I, now. “That’s the way it is these days. You didn’t spend all your time napping, you’d know we’re getting into the hell times.” Damn! Me and my mouth. Now he would insist I spend another day bringing him up to date. A lot had been happening.

The Goddamn Parrot was squawking with a vengeance now. He had discovered that I had not put out birdseed before I’d hit the sack. Hell, I’d barely remembered to lock the door. I’d only just survived a near terminal case of redheaditis complicated by psychopathic killer transvestites and I had wanted to unwind.

Dean got to the kitchen before I could head him off. His howl stilled hearts for miles. Mr. Big squawked in fear. The Dead Man offered some mind racket meant as commiseration. Fetishist household order is not a priority with him, either.

Dean had started through the kitchen doorway. He froze there. He posed, the most put-upon old boy who ever lived. “
Mister
Garrett. Will you please come here and explain?”

“Well, I did kind of get behind on the dishes.” I headed for the stairs. He wanted to give me a few choice pieces of advice, but the words all tried to come out at once. He began shaking in frustration when he could not get them untangled. I made my escape.

Sort of. I headed for his room upstairs, which I had not gotten straightened up after having stashed a fugitive girl there while he was away. He would get really excited if he saw the mess she had left.