Petty Pewter Gods

Must you interrupt? He rooted around inside my head. He never does that unless he is seriously provoked or concerned. He reviewed my experiences during his nap. Usually he is overly careful to respect my privacy.

  His behavior was troubling. I had to suspect that he knew something that had not occurred to me.

  Who do we know who has the ability to read? Other than yourself?

  “Playmate,” I replied, puzzled. “But not real good. Winger, a little. Morley. Barking Dog...”

  Winger? Astonishment.

  “She’s been learning. The better to con you with, my dear. Always a surprise, Winger is.”

  Not good enough. Try to get your librarian friend to come in.

  “Why?” Talk about astonishment. The Dead Man asking for a woman to be brought into the house?

  Any books you do obtain will have to be read to me. It is too difficult for me to do it by myself.

  Turning the pages is a bitch when you’re dead. Though he could manage it if he had to.

  “I got you.”

  An even bigger problem is that he has a hard time seeing if he can’t use somebody’s else’s eyes.

  Once you have dealt with Linda Lee I want you to go to the Dream Quarter. Examine the temples involved in this business. Move carefully. Waste no time but take all the time you need to study the places right while maintaining your personal safety.

  “What? Shouldn’t I look for this key?”

  That is of no concern now. Information is. If you collect the available information I will sift the clues. I am not as powerful as these gods, but I am far smarter.

  “No self-image problem over there,” I told Dean, who had made no effort to leave.

  Much the same can be said of you, Garrett. I do not recall the Godoroth well, but do believe Magodor may be the only one smarter than a four-year-old.

  Wonderful.

  Time is wasting, Garrett. To the library. Then to the Dream Quarter.

  “What about the Shayir?”

  What about them?

  “Apparently they were on to me even before the Godoroth. What do I do if they close in on me?”

  Use your wits, guided by experience. You have your weapons and your physical skills. In any event, you will achieve nothing standing there. Dean. After you have spoken to Mr. Dotes, locate Mr. Tharpe. If Mr. Tharpe is unavailable, find Mr. Playmate. As a last resort, call upon Miss Winger. Then return here quickly. I will have more for you to do. Garrett.

  I paused at the door. I will say this about the Dead Man. It is blue-haired hell getting him started, but once he is into something he is a take-charge kind of guy. “What?”

  Take the parrot.

  “What? Are you crazy? I got lucky a while ago, but you know my luck ran out. He’ll get me killed before I walk a block. He’ll tell some giant his mother does trolls, and they’ll find parts of me all over town.”

  Take the parrot. Put a lanyard on his leg if you feel the need. I believe he will be more cooperative than usual.

  “Dead would be more cooperative than usual.”

  Garrett.

  He was impatient. He had no time to play. When he is in a mood like that it is best to humor him.

  The Goddamn Parrot offered me a black look but only nibbled my fingers once when I moved him from his perch to my shoulder. Hell if I would tie him down. Anytime he wanted to escape I would stand there grinning and waving bye-bye. But I knew how my luck would run already. Just like before, he would beat me home.

  “I need an eye patch and an earring,” I muttered. “Yo ho ho.”

  14

  I stood on the stoop wishing for a beard to go with the earring and eye patch. I growled, “Argh! Prepare to repel boarders.”

  T. G. Parrot squawked, “Awk! Shiver me timbers!”

  I tried to give him my best jaundiced look, but he couldn’t get the full benefit perched as he was on my shoulder.

  Neighborhood kids materialized out of the crowd. “Can we feed your parrot, Mr. Garrett?”

  “Yeah. To one of those flying thunder lizards.” A pair were circling high above, shopping for plump pigeons.

  The kids didn’t get it. Short attention spans, I guess. It had been a while since their elders had worried about trouble with thunder lizards. Now we had centaur infestations and whatnot.

  As my old Aunt Boo used to say, “It’s always something.”

  I looked up the street. Mrs. Cardonlos was out watching. I waved. Always a neighborly smile, that Mr. Garrett. It drove her crazy. Made her sure I was up to no good.

  I’d barely entered the crowd when Dean left the house. He was pale. He didn’t look at me. He headed downhill, toward Morley’s Joy House, which now masquerades as The Palms.

  I went the other way, amidst the fastest traffic. I didn’t make much effort to see if I was followed. If I had gods on my case they would have resources better than mine. I headed where I had to go, wondering why the Dead Man was taking this so seriously.

  I think I was followed by the same woman, only now she seemed taller and had a fall of white on the right side of otherwise raven hair that hung quite long. I didn’t get a good look at her clothing, but it had a foreign air.

  The Royal Library has a side entrance that isn’t well known to those without friends inside. You do have to slip past an ancient guard who uses his job to catch up on naps he lost while he was off to war. Once he is behind you, all you have to do is avoid notice by the senior librarian. That isn’t hard, either. She is ancient and slow and stumbles into things when she is moving around. Once you are inside, you have to decide whether to see your friend or load up with rare books to sell.

  Turned out that was the way it used to be. Changes had been made. All my fault for returning the stolen books I had happened upon the other day.

  The old man had been replaced. A hard young veteran manned his desk. He was snoring. A liquor bottle dangled from his hand. Sneaky was wasted on him. I was tempted to leave the parrot on his shoulder. Let him wake up and find himself infested. He wouldn’t take another drink for hours.

  I resisted. We must not dishonor our public servants.

  I found Linda Lee in the stacks, peering intently at worn and flaky leather spines. She had a stylus in her mouth, bitten crosswise. She carried a wax note tablet and a small lantern. Her sleek brown hair was pulled back in an old maid’s bun and, damn me, a few gray hairs showed on her temple. She might have a few years she hadn’t mentioned.

  Even so, she was the cutest bookworm I’d ever seen.

  I asked, “What do you do when you have to make a note?”

  She jumped. She whirled. Sparks danced in her eyes. I never knew how she was going to greet me. “What the hell are you doing here?” She had no trouble talking around the stylus.

  “Looking for you.”

  “Can’t get a date?”

  “It’s professional this time...” There you go shoving one of those big old dirty hooves of yours right down your throat, Garrett. You slick talker. “My mouth just won’t say what me head tells it to today.”

  “Surprise, surprise. What the hell is that on your shoulder? You trying a new look?”

  “You remember Mr. Big.”

  “Unfortunately. That’s why I asked. Why haven’t you drowned it? What’s wrong with it?”

  “Huh?” She wasn’t herself. I wondered who she was. That might clue me in about who she wanted me to be so all four of us could get along.

  “It hasn’t said anything. Usually it’s criminally obnoxious.”

  “The Dead Man did something to him.”

  Linda Lee shuddered. The Dead Man gave her the creeps. That might be a problem.

  “So ignore the fact that I haven’t seen you since I was a girl.”

  “Three days?”

  “What do you want?” For all she apparently wanted to fight, she kept her voice down. Her superiors and coworkers didn’t like me wandering in and out. It shook their confidence in their safety and the security of the Royal collection. If I kept i
t up, someday they would have to do something. Maybe even put out money for a real guard.

  “Three days isn’t long enough for you to turn into your own grandmother... Damn! Now I’m doing it.”

  “It hasn’t been a good day. Time is flying, Garrett.”

  No need to cause more difficulties. I told the story, quick and straight, giving the most detail in the least time. I left out a few details she didn’t really need, like how exciting some of those goddess types were.

  She grew thoughtful before I finished. “Really? Gods? I never?... You don’t think about them actually getting in your way, do you?”

  “No. They’re like another remove beyond the firelords and stormwardens. They may shape your life, but you don’t figure on banging into one going around a corner. Given my druthers, I’d never run into either one.”

  “Too much potential for disaster.”

  “Absodamnlutely. You know anything about these gods?”

  “Only their names. There are a lot of old mythologies. They aren’t my area. I could get Mad.”

  “I thought you were. I just couldn’t figure out why.”

  “Mad is Madelaine. She handles our scriptures.”

  I recalled a harridan of satanic disposition old enough to have written the first drafts of most of her charges. “That’s not necessary. I just need whatever I can get on the Godoroth and Shayir over to the house so somebody can read them to the Dead Man.”

  “You can’t take books out of here.”

  “I thought I explained. I’ve only got a few days and I don’t have a clue where to start.” I touched the high points again.

  She understood, all right. She was negotiating. If she was going to take risks she wanted something more than a kiss and a thank you. Maybe some yellow roses.

  “All right. All right,” she whispered, throwing a troubled glance over her left shoulder. She placed a finger against her lips. I nodded. Her ears were better than mine. First thing they check when you apply at the library is your ears.

  She gestured “Go away!” with finger still to lips. I went. She would do me the favor. She might even read for the Dead Man. He could charm them when he wanted. But she was going to make me pay.

  I eased into shadow at the nether end of the stacks as the mother of all librarians materialized at Linda Lee’s end. The way she moved, she could have run the hundred-yard dash in slightly under a decade. She leaned on a gnarly, ugly cane notched once for every time she had caught someone talking. Her hair was white and thin and wild, and she was bent way over. She wore cheaters, which suggested she had wealthy relatives. Spectacles cost a fortune. But she still could not see her hand more than a foot from her face. I could have danced naked where I was and she would not have had a clue.

  She croaked, “What’s all the racket down here, child?”

  On the other hand...

  “Mistress Krine?”

  “The noise, child. The noise. I heard it all the way upstairs. Do you have one of your men down here again?”

  One of? Well. You devil.

  “Mistress! I was only whispering to myself. I can’t read the lettering on these spines. The gold flake is almost gone.”

  “And that’s the project, isn’t it? Find the volumes that need restoration? In future, restrain your expression of frustration... What was that? Is someone there?”

  Not anymore. I was gone, down the back way to the back door, with less sound than a mouse on the run. I floated past the guard. His sleep remained untroubled.

  What the hell was wrong with the Goddamn Parrot today? He just blew the opportunity of a lifetime. He hadn’t made a whimper.

  15

  It was still daytime outside. I know because they took a couple of bars of sunlight and tried to drive my eyeballs out the back of my head. It wasn’t morning anymore, but it looked like one of those days when the rest of the world would insist that it stay morning all day long.

  Once the pain faded, I surveyed the immediate area. The library stands amid an infestation of official buildings, both municipal and royal. Traffic is different there, being made up mostly of functionaries. I saw nothing unusual — which meant only that I couldn’t see any watchers.

  I headed out.

  The afternoon remained so relentlessly pleasant that I began to give in despite the state of my head. Infected by a lighter mood, I paused at the Chancellery steps to listen to the crackpots rave. Any wacko with a goofball grievance or a fanciful cause can use those steps as a forum. Never kindly, the rest of us use them as free entertainment. I know some of the less bizarre, habitual speakers. In my line, knowing people is a major asset. I didn’t nurture my contacts enough anymore. Today I didn’t have time. I gave Barking Dog Amato a thumbs up and dropped a groat into his cup, waved to a couple other howlers. I moved on. My head throbbed. My parrot never cracked his beak. The Dead Man must have destroyed his brain.

  Around and down and off for the south side. I wasn’t going to like this thing because of all the walking. There are less strenuous ways to get around, but none faster. Even the great wizards with their big coaches and running footmen and outriders and trumpeters can’t get around as fast as a man on foot. Walking, you can cut through alleys and climb over fences.

  I didn’t shortcut much. I don’t climb unless I have to, and alleys often harbor people or prospects best left unchallenged. Still, when the choice is a hundred yards straight or half a mile around...

  I had used Slight Alley often. A lot of people do. It stays relatively clean. Heavy traffic discourages both squatters and the forces of free-lance socialism. It is difficult to manage what is essentially a privacy-oriented one-on-one transaction when at any time somebody troublesome may wander between you and your... er... client.

  I risked Slight Alley.

  The ramshackle frame half-timber structures popular in the neighborhood leaned in overhead, reaching out to one another like drunks in need of mutual support. Most of the afternoon’s intense sunshine failed to penetrate, but there was more light than normal. The paving bricks were cleaner than usual, too. You could see their dark red. On the other hand, there were squatters in residence. Not only the ratmen you expected, but families of refugees.

  The times they change.

  I wondered how we would feed all the immigrants. If racist groups like The Call had their way, the refugees would eat the dwarves and ogres and elves already here.

  I stopped. “What?” I had caught a strange smell. There was no describing it. It was neither awful nor particularly pleasant. Mostly it was startling.

  It was gone in an instant. I couldn’t catch it again. Happens all the time. I resumed walking, ignored the sleepy-eyed stare of a drunken ratman trying to decide if I was behaving strangely.

  I was. At the first hint of the unusual my hand had darted to Magodor’s cord. My habit is to face sudden threats with an eighteen-inch oaken nightstick into which has been introduced, by way of providing additional encouragement to the customer, a pound of lead at the business end.

  Slight Alley has a couple of jags and an offset where it crosses another alley stretching east and west. I noticed that the light had a golden, autumnal cast. Though diffuse, it sent shadows crawling over the walls. Some of those seemed to assume almost recognizable shapes.

  Then there were the whispers behind me, like the whispers of mocking children, perhaps speaking a foreign tongue. I felt a lot better when I reached a real street filled with real people.

  As I hurried the last mile, I tried to think of somebody I knew in the religion racket who wouldn’t run me off on sight. Most religious leaders are paranoid about their privacy. They feel especially threatened if they suspect an investigation of their finances. They have me run off just on the chance somebody might want me to check them out.

  Playmate was the only religious character I knew. And he was just a wannabe preacher.

  Then how about somebody who would answer my questions in order to get rid of me? Somebody who had no use for me a
t all. I tried to recall who all had been involved that time that Maya and I had straightened out the feud between the Church and the Orthodox over their missing Terrell Relics.

  Hell. I didn’t even have useful enemies down in the Dream Quarter.

  I hit the Street of the Gods farther to the west than I had planned, but Slight Alley had given me a case of the willies. There was no reason not to feel safe now. The Dream Quarter is the safest neighborhood in town.

  I hustled past Chattaree and other huge places belonging to successful cults, recalled from past cases. Back then, though, I was dealing with flawed holy men, not the gods themselves. What was Maya doing now? I could ask Dean in a few days. He would know. They stayed in touch.

  The weather must have melted the stone hearts of the older priests because the acolytes and postulants and what-have-you were all out fluttering like mayflies. The scenery was positively brilliant around the female-oriented temples.

  The first four or five people I approached had not heard of either the Godoroth or the Shayir. Farther east I got a couple of bewildered “I ought to know what you’re talking about but don’t” responses, like the guy seven and a half feet tall, pale as death, wearing a black robe and lugging an ivory staff topped by an angry cobra’s head. This character had no more meat on him than a skeleton. He mused, “Shayir? Those the people with the squid gods?”

  “I don’t know.” Squids? I’m not even fond of mortal cephalopods, let alone many-armed critters with delusions of being masters of the universe.

  “No, wait. Those are the Church of the Nameless Unspeakable Elder Outer Darkness From Beyond the Stars folks. I’m sorry. I should know, but I don’t. But you’re headed in the right direction. They must be right on the bottom end, ready to fall into the river.”

  How you going to learn anything when nobody knows anything?

  I thanked him, accepted a small card good for one admission into one of his snake-worshiping services, said I sure would stop by, I just plain loved snakes. The bigger the better. I had a few for breakfast in the islands.

  He guaranteed me they had a serpent that was a genuine kick-ass god snake big enough to snack on horses.