Authors: Glen Cook
It will tear your heart out when your mom all of a sudden can’t remember your name.
Easy, I say.
“‘The pain still remains,’” I told him, quoting a popular soldiers’ poem. He would be hearing that a lot if he kept up his interest in current politics. The Call had set it to music. When the fighting is done and the long night is gone, the pain still remains.
Manage it, Garrett.
“Getting short-tempered, are we?”
We have an opportunity here. This child is the stone at the center.
“The fruit outside looks pretty tasty, too.”
Mental sneer.
She cannot be reached. Not at her heart. And now I see that it is not of her own choosing.
I’m a normal, red-blooded TunFairen boy, so I wasn’t much concerned about her heart when I looked her over. I grumped, “You manage your own pain.”
Cat was drifting, but she was not catatonic. She knew we were talking about her and probably did follow my half of the conversation. She did not appear to resent it. Assuming the Dead Man was right about her birth, she undoubtedly had had plenty of experience being an outsider.
Ah. A plan presents itself. Inasmuch as you find Cat such
a
delectable morsel, you might try doing what you do so well. Charm her. See where that goes. She may lead you to valuable information.
“Like we have that kind of time?” He dwells entirely in the realm of fantasy when he pictures my abilities to understand and communicate with the opposite sex. Old Bones, they are way too opposite for me.
And it was not like him to give up on himself so easily. Let Garrett do it? Not when he thought so much of his own ability to get inside another mind. Either he overestimated Cat or he was sneaking around to get an angle on me. This news could break his heart, but it seemed to me that, as is the case with so many young ladies her age, there just wasn’t a whole lot in Cat’s head to find.
Faintly, faintly, like the remotest, most tenuous whiff of weed smoke drifting from an alley, gone in a blink:
Nog is ines...
I shuddered.
That was not pleasant.
“You ought to smell him.”
Not a problem for me anymore.
“Nice to know there are advantages to being dead.”
The watchers have begun to move in slowly as members of each pantheon try to stay a few feet ahead of their competitors. I need Dean to send the bird out again.
From the kitchen came an uncommon construction blurted in response to the Dead Man’s touch. I heard Dean stomp toward the front door. I heard him say something very unpleasant to Mr. Big. The Goddamn Parrot did not respond. Maybe he had discovered manners.
Maybe there were blizzards in the hot place and all the young devils were sharpening their skates.
Dean stuck his head into the Dead Man’s room. “Mr. Dotes is headed this way.”
“Morley?” It had been a while since I had seen Morley Dotes, my sometime best pal. He was trying to go high class, which apparently meant scraping old buddies off the soles of his shoes.
“Do we know another Dotes?” Dean does not approve of Morley. Of course, he doesn’t approve of much of anything but marriagable nieces and his friends Tinnie and Maya. But not many other people approve of Morley, either. Morley is what discreet, gentle folk would call a thug.
In the real world Morley is known as one badass bonebreaker.
Who has developed delusions and illusions.
Please await Mr. Dotes at the front door, Dean. Bring him straight here. I am certain we will find his news enlightening.
36
Morley Dotes is part human, part dark elf. His elven side dominates. His choice. He seems embarrassed by his human side. Can’t say I blame him.
He is short and lean and so damned good-looking they ought to jail him and lose the key. So the rest of us get a break. I have known him a long time. Sometimes we are best pals. Sometimes he does stuff like give me a talking buzzard that is possessed by an insane demon that causes diarrhea of the beak.
“Mr. Dotes,” Dean said, showing Morley into the Dead Man’s room.
“Egad,” I said. I’ve always wanted to say that. The opportunity never presented itself before. “Your boys knock over a tailor shop?”
He was dressed to the nines. Maybe even to the tens or elevens. He had on a silver-trimmed black tricorner hat, a heavy, bright red-, black-, and silver-trimmed cutaway over a white shirt wild with lace and ruffles at throat and wrists, a skinny sword cane, natty cream hose, and incredibly shiny shoes with huge silver buckles. He even had a little twitch of a black mustache coming in.
“Some high-class Hill couches must have died to make that coat.”
Morley removed a white silk glove, took out a scented little hanky, held it beneath his nose. He sniffed and eyed Cat speculatively, wondering if there was something between her and me. That is the one line he never crosses.
“Really putting on the airs now, isn’t he?” I asked the Dead Man.
A man has got to do what a man has got to do.
The Dead Man’s sarcasm would have rattled the windows if the room had had any windows to rattle.
Morley took it in stride. We peasants could not be expected to appreciate his improved, refined station. “As you requested,” he told the Dead Man, flouncing that damned hanky like he belonged in the West End, “I inspected the site you specified. In fact, I soiled a perfectly beautiful...”
Nog is inescapable.
This one was a lot stronger. Nog was close. And his thought did not touch just the Dead Man and me. Morley lost his color.
I told him, “That’s not just another Loghyr. That’s a for sure howling petty pewter god whose specialty is hunting people down. Right now he’s looking for me.”
Cat had caught it, too. She started moving around nervously. “I need to get out of here, Garrett. If Nog finds me here...”
Show the young lady to the small front room, please, Dean. Miss Cat, I wish to speak to you for a moment privately before you depart. In the interim, I need to consult with these gentlemen.
“Where will I be able to get ahold of you?” I asked Cat, as though I believed the Dead Man really did plan to cut her loose.
“I’ll find you.”
“Sure you will. Good-bye, then. Behave yourself.”
She gave me a funny look, then went with Dean. She failed to take Fourteen with her. That had to mean something to somebody.
In the background Nog faded away, but he left no doubt that he was not far off and in a foul mood besides. His pals were bound to be around, too, and I couldn’t see their tempers being any more pleasant.
I fear it will not be long before they come visiting.
Morley asked, “Are you into something weird again, Garrett?” He stared at the cherub like he half expected it to come to life and snipe an arrow right into his black heart.
“Me? Into something weird? The gods forfend.” I told him all about it. And concluded, “It wasn’t my idea.”
“But then, it never is. Is it? I take it that was some other clown named Garrett who went chasing the skirt up Macunado.”
“Here’s the pot calling the kettle. You never saw a skirt you wouldn’t chase.”
“Technically incorrect, although true in spirit. If you will recall I was able to resist several of the old man’s nieces.”
“They’re a pretty resistable bunch.”
I remembered the owl girls. I chuckled. They would make a fine payback for the Goddamn Parrot. I could give him back birds with interest. If I could fix it so he couldn’t get away from them for a month or two.
“Great story, Garrett. Real interesting. I’m sorry I can’t help you with this one.” Dotes shrugged. “And I didn’t come over to trade insults.” He pumped a thumb. “That one asked me to look into something. I came to tell him what I found.”
That you have appeared in person leads me to believe that the treasure is, indeed, hidden exactly as Magodor suggested.
“There’s one to wake up to in the morning, Morley.”
When money was involved Morley trusted nobody. I have become so cynical I even wondered why he hadn’t just grabbed the treasure and reported it nonexistent. I wondered why the Dead Man had chosen to send Morley. I would have used Playmate. Morley’s ethics are not as flexible as Winger’s, but they still have plenty of elastic in them.
Actually, he wouldn’t do me that way. He might use me in a scheme without consulting me first, as he had done a few times already, and he might dump a Goddamn Parrot on me as a practical joke, but he would not steal from me.
Excellent. Then there is a possibility Garrett’s latest misadventure will not turn up a complete loss. Will you contract to recover the treasure for a percentage?
“Hey!...”
You will be busy running, Garrett.
I caught just the faintest parting echo of Nog. How long before he passed this way again?
“Mr. Garrett?” Dean was in the doorway. “Slim is here for his delivery and pickup.”
“Good.” I hadn’t gotten a chance to steal a sip off the emergency pony keg. Life is a bitch. “That gives me an idea. Go let him in.”
37
Slim doesn’t find my line of work believable, but the notion I tossed out captured his imagination. “All right, Garrett. I’ll do it. Might be fun.”
Might turn painful if some Godoroth thug got pissed off, but I forbore mentioning that. We need not trouble him unnecessarily. It might disturb his concentration.
“All right, Dean. Let’s get the barrel up here.”
I had a huge old wine cask in the cellar. It had been down there for ages. One day real soon now I planned to clean it up and fill it with water so we could withstand a protracted siege. I have all sorts of great ideas for that sort of stuff, like running an escape tunnel or two, but I never get around to working on them.
Slim removed a couple of beer kegs while Dean and I wrestled the barrel up from the cellar. Dean mostly kept his opinions to himself because he didn’t have anything positive to say. He did bark at Cat when she dared peek out the door of the small sitting room.
The barrel was thoroughly dried out, which meant its ends and staves were not as tight as they would be when soaked and swollen. That left me worried that the damned thing might fall apart while they were carrying it out to Slim’s cart. I wouldn’t look real dignified falling out of an exploding barrel.
As soon as Dean shut me in, I knew I had made a mistake. I should have just walked out the door. The results would have been less unpleasant. This was like being trapped in a wino’s coffin. And I am not comfortable with tight places. Smelly tight places are worse. Getting rolled down steps inside a smelly tight place is worse still. And no effort to make me unhappier was spared when the bunch of them tossed my conveyance onto Slim’s cart. Vaguely, I heard Morley mixing complaints about what could have happened to his clothing with chuckles about my probable discomfort.
I should fix him up with Magodor. Maggie was just the girl for him. Snakes in her hair. Fangs. Claws at the ends of all those arms.
Matters did not improve anytime soon. The cart started moving. Slim did not ride it, he led his team. He had no need to ease the bump and bang of solid wooden wheels rolling over cobblestones.
It seemed I was in there for several infant eternities. Slim was supposed to head straight for his Weider distributor to get shut of me and my empties and reload with full kegs, but soon I became convinced that he was going the long way, looking for the princes of potholes. Every bump we hit made the barrel creak and move around the cart a bit.
Bang! We hit a big one. I thought I was going over. Slim growled at his donkeys. I swear one of them laughed
—
that honking bray they have.
Donkeys are relatives of horses.
Bang! again. This time we got the mother of all potholes. My barrel bounced off the back of Slim’s cart. It fell apart when it hit the pavement. I staggered up dripping staves and hoops, looking around fast to see if I needed to run. I didn’t see a cherub, let alone a full-fledged third-rate god.
“Sorry,” Slim told me. “These damned donkeys seem to be taking aim at every damned pothole.”
The animal nearest me sneered.
“Throw them to the wolves. Use them for thunder lizard bait. Don’t suffer them a minute longer. If you do, someday they’ll get you.”
Slim gave me a really strange look.
“Thanks for the help,” I told him. “You want what’s left of this thing?” A barrel is a valuable commodity even if it requires some assembly.
“Yeah. Sure.”
No danger greater than the bile of donkeys presented itself. I helped Slim get the barrel pieces into his cart. People who had watched me get hatched from a wooden egg just stood around and stared. They worried me only because they would brag about what they had seen and somebody somewhere sometime would realize that the clown in the barrel had been me.
Could not help that. Could get my feet to stepping.
The Goddamn Parrot swooped past, vanished without any comment.
I had my feet moving now but did not know where to let them take me. South seemed good. If I made the Dream Quarter, the Godoroth and Shayir would not be able to bully me without irritating all the other gods.
38
I got so close I began to think I was going to make it. But I hadn’t put enough thought into planning. I took almost the same route I had followed before. All too soon I began seeing strange shadows in golden light. I heard whispers just beyond the edge of hearing, though some of those emanated from the Goddamn Parrot, who was trailing me.
The bird swooped in, plopped onto my shoulder while squawking something about changing course right now. I told it, “I’ve picked up something that I think is called Tobrit the Strayer. Shayir. It’s more like a fear than anything. If it’s the same one, the one time I saw it materialize it turned into an oversize and over-ugly imitation faun that was hornier than a three-headed horned toad.”
I spoke in a normal voice. The Goddamn Parrot screeched. Naturally, people stared. I made the turn the bird demanded. I tried not to dwell on the nightmare that life could become if the Dead Man kept the bird on me all the time.