“What I’m looking for is a little-known path or road we can use to slip away from here.” Inside I was kicking myself for not having pulled this together last night, when we’d had a lot bigger lead on the folks who’d be headed our way now.
That messenger was going to end up having to whistle for the second half of his stipend.
“You do know this country well enough to help us with that, don’t you? Probably grew up around here? Came right back after you did your five? Right?”
The man nodded his head.
“Good. I’m going to take your gag off now. And we’ll get started on making you one of the crew.”
I scanned the group. This wasn’t a promising crowd for making a running retreat. Kip was in no shape to travel. Neither was Mr. Thring. Dojango would whine a lot but he could walk. Limping. He’d soaked his feet. Playmate and Saucerhead would manage what they had to manage. Doris and Marsha would end up doing more than their reasonable share, as usual, probably by having to carry somebody. And I would want to take an elf or two along.
The females seemed the most promising hostages. They were lighter and from what little I could sense of what was going on inside them, they seemed more cooperative, more likely to talk about things none of the several crews wanted known.
Playmate, Saucerhead, and I could take turns pulling our prisoner cart.
Saucerhead approached. “What’s up, Garrett?”
“I’ve decided not to wait for Colonel Block. Mr. Thring here has been generous enough to offer to guide us out of here by back ways so we can get out and go home without having to deal with those special people who’re likely to show up here with the Guard.”
“I gotcha. Good idea. You suppose he could guide us somewhere where we could get something to eat?”
“I’ll talk to him about that.”
A little hunger probably wouldn’t hurt us nearly as much as leaving a clear backtrail. Once we put some miles between ourselves and the wrecked skyships, though...
I was ready for a snack myself.
52
I was so agitated. All my paranoia went to waste.
When I reached home, after an epic death march that brought the survivors and me into town through the west gate, I learned that the Dead Man hadn’t received my message at all. Neither had Morley, because Morley would’ve contacted His Nibs if he had.
What that meant was, there was still a gang of elves out there, tied up and maybe dying of thirst and exposure.
I headed for the al-Khar immediately. There wasn’t much of me left when I got there. I need to work on my strength and endurance.
I had no trouble getting in to see Colonel Block. He really was interested in what I was doing.
I related a comprehensive version of my story. It ran light on the sorcery side and came up short on names but was solid enough to let the colonel know that here was a matter genuinely in need of his attention.
Block asked, “Did you happen to catch the name of this weirdly dressed fellow who was supposed to bring me your message?”
“Yeah. Earp. Eritytie Earp.”
“Was he Michorite? That sounds Michorite.”
“Possibly. Maybe one of those cults, now that you mention it. He dressed the part.”
“And I’ll bet all the other hands yucked it up when he volunteered to take the job. Am I right?”
“There was some amusement. But nobody else volunteered.”
“You know what? Your boy is going to wake up in the Tenderloin stone-cold broke, without even his farmboy brogans, undoubtedly so wrecked that he can’t remember his own name, let alone those of people he was supposed to give messages. Those ascetic cultists don’t deal with temptation well when they come up against it without all their sour fart buddies watching over their shoulders, holding them back.”
“Hell, that could be me. But at least I’ve been there enough times that I know what I’m missing.”
Block gave me a concerned look. “You may end up with some legal problems if any of those elves die. Can you produce trustworthy witnesses to back you up when you say they kidnapped this kid?”
“Hell, Wes, you had a guy there when it happened.”
“Not exactly. Oh, I do believe you. More or less.”
“So why don’t I just stipulate that you’ve got me over a barrel? Get somebody out there. Those creatures can’t do you any good dead. If you really need me, you know where I live.”
“I thought you’d go along. Be right there handy when questions start popping up.”
“You thought wrong. I’m going home. I’m going to eat and sleep and not do anything else for about nine days. I’m allergic to the country. It takes me a long time to get over it. I’m just trying to do my civic duty here, anyway.”
“You always were a bullshitter, Garrett. I’ll let you know how it comes out.”
I’d heard that before. He’d forget about me the second I left. The only reason he’d mentioned taking me along was to make me more eager to get out of there. He wanted to grab the benefits of this for Westman Block.
Damn, that was smart of me, being stupid enough to hire a messenger who’d get lost in the red-light district before he thought of doing anything else.
From the little I’ve heard about the Michorites and related cults, that’s a rite of passage. They — the men — get one chance to sneak away and wallow in sin and depravity. Then they spend the rest of their lives keeping an eye on each other, every miserable man making sure nobody else has any fun ever again.
“In your hands,” I said. “I hope you get more out of it than I did.”
“Go on. Before I change my mind.” He might, just to show me that he could, so I got.
The house was crowded, what with Singe, Kip, and the captive silver elves staying over. Singe offered to ease the crowding by moving into my room with me.
I begged off again. Kip and the elves ended up sleeping on the floor in the Dead Man’s room, where he’d have the least trouble keeping them under control.
I’d really hoped that Singe’s encounter with Rhafi unclothed would scare her off. It seemed to have whetted her curiosity instead.
The situation amused His Nibs immensely. He wasn’t going to help me get out of it, either. I fell asleep in a household drenched in the miasma of his amusement.
53
Dean never gave the bitching a minute’s rest but he did cook up breakfast enough for the whole wretched crowd.
The elf women joined in timidly. Dean tried them on everything in his arsenal. Tea they found acceptable. Honey seemed to be all right, in tea or straight from the pot. One nibbled a biscuit, also with honey aboard. Bacon revolted the two of them. The more obviously feminine member of the pair — the one who looked like she’d actually made it a few weeks into puberty — attacked the mustard once she discovered it. Dean scowled and muttered to himself. A lot of work goes into grinding seed and preparing the condiment. There’s always a pot on the table, mainly because I don’t much like mustard.
The other elf woman, the elder and senior woman — judging by wrinkles — seemed terrified, though no one even spoke to her. I got the feeling she’d never seen the inner workings of a Karentine household.
Fear or no, she did appear to me immensely curious about everything.
Kip was a shuddering zombie, controlled by an increasingly exasperated Dead Man. Kip never stopped fighting him. Something was missing in that boy’s makeup. I couldn’t understand how he’d managed to stay alive this long.
Singe and I removed to the Dead Man’s room as soon as I’d had enough to eat. She brought a platter along with her, loaded with seconds or thirds. Having no better idea what to do with herself, the slimmer elf woman tagged along. She wouldn’t sit when I offered her my chair because that would leave me standing between her and the door. The other one stayed with Dean, exploring the wonders of the kitchen.
“So where do we stand, Old Bones? Have we learned anything?”
Perhaps. At the fi
rst instance, probably that we should not have allowed emotion to sweep us away and get us involved in this. As I see it now, we have stormed into the middle of something that was none of our business. We have done nothing but trail chaos and dismay wherever we have gone.
“What do you mean, ‘we,’ Big Daddy Homely? You can’t really talk about someone else in the royal plural, can you?”
Do not become tedious. I am struggling to translate what little recognizable material I find in the thin creature’s mind. This is truly an alien intelligence, Garrett. I have encountered nothing like it in all my years. Nor have I ever heard of such creatures... Unless... There may have been similar folk here when I was a child. Visitors, they were called then. They were all murdered for their secrets. Inasmuch as they did not reveal anything they were soon forgotten.
I am having difficulty communicating not just because of what you would call a language barrier but also because of her fear. She is awash in fear, not just of us, here, whom she finds terrifying enough, but of being cut off from her own people. She is completely unmanned by the possibility that she may never be able to return home. And least of all, but still there in the mix, is a fear of the consequences of the failure of her mission.
“And that would be?”
I do not know. That is in a sealed part of her mind.
“What about the other one?”
She is frightened, too. And her mind is more closed. But behind her fear there is a hint of her seeing this personal disaster as a potential opportunity for... I do not know what. Something compulsive. Possibly obsessive. Possibly something wicked. Worms of temptation have begun to awaken way down in the black, mucky deeps...
I hate it when he meanders off on a free association, poetic ramble. I guess because I can’t ever figure out what the hell he’s babbling about. “What about Kip? Did you get anything new out of him?”
Yes. Once I became aware that there was something that should be there. But it is not much. And I do not know if we can justify hunting down Lastyr and Noodiss.
“Of course we can.” But I couldn’t think of any reasonable argument in favor of that. “Is there any chance some of those elves might’ve put a compulsion into my head somewhere along the way? Like one of those times when I was knocked out?”
At the moment I am unable to investigate. All of my mental capacity is occupied by the boy and these foreign women.
“They definitely are both women, then.”
By birth. You unclothed them. You saw.
“I didn’t see much.” But what I had seen had been curiously interesting. “The one in the kitchen at least raised a crop of lemons.”
Many human women are not as voluptuous as those in the range you usually find interesting. This one’s primary sexual characteristics are somewhat atrophied. I would expect that to be true of the others, as well.
“I did notice that.” In the women it all added up to a sort of virginal innocence that was attractive in its own fashion.
Singe hissed at me. I think it was supposed to be laughter.
I suspect that this is not an individual aberration. I suspect that we would find the males even more atrophied.
“Weird.” I shuddered. “The ones I stripped down out there definitely weren’t built to boogie. Maybe I ought to introduce this old gal to Morley.”
The pixies out front launched one of their racket shows, which wakened the Goddamned Parrot.
She may be beyond seduction, Garrett. They may have tried to breed the sexual impulse out of themselves. The same madness has been tried by countless cults in our part of the world in a shortsighted effort to shove all those distractions aside.
“How the hell do they get little elves, then?”
Exactly. No such cult lasts more than a generation. Perhaps the silver elves have found a way around that limitation. Possibly they have a separate breeder caste. I do not know. I do know that no living creature I have ever encountered, save the rare mutant, has lacked desire, however distorted the core impulse might have become because of stresses upon the individual. I would suspect them to be present in these elves. But buried deep.
“So have you gotten anything out of the kid concerning his two weird pals?”
Truly, he does not know how or where to find them. He does not have a reliable means of attracting their attention. His method worked only two times in five tries. The rest of the time they just turned up at their own discretion, almost always when he was alone. It has not occurred to Kip to wonder but they almost certainly knew that he was alone before they visited.
Dean stuck his head in. “That racket out front is because the wee folk have spotted Bic Gonlit.”
Dean was talking to the pixies now? Times change. I gave him the fish-eye, on general principles. He wouldn’t be feeding them, too, would he?
“Now why would Bic...?”
I have him. Go bring him in, Garrett. He flashed me a pixie’s-eye view of the spot from which Bic was watching the house. I noted that it was farther away than the Dead Man had shown he could reach before when trying to manipulate a human being. After that, take Kip home to his mother. He is nothing but a distraction here.
“This is the real Bic Gonlit?”
The genuine article. Evidently determined to be foolish. Help me find out why. He will not run this time. He will not see you leave the house.
54
Though he was mad as hell Bic couldn’t get his body to move. He couldn’t do anything but flinch when my hand settled on his shoulder. “Bic, my man, here you are again. Lurking. Let’s go for a walk.”
Gonlit stood up and zombie-walked over to the house with me. I talked to him all the way, mainly in an admonitory tone. There was no need to get any other watchers overly excited.
I did blow Mrs. Cardonlos a kiss. She was out on her porch, keeping her eyes open. She needed her reward.
Mr. Gonlit is after Miss Pular again. Now on behalf of a ratman who calls himself John Stretch.
“You get the joke, Singe? John Stretch?”
“No. Why would the name John Stretch be a joke?” The notion seemed to irritate her.
“John Stretch is what they used to call the hangman, before we got civilized and started lopping off heads instead.”
“Is that true? I wonder who he could be.” Singe had almost no accent left, despite her vastly different throat and voice box. Scary how talented the girl was. But her tone was so controlled even I knew she was dancing around something. I was surprised the Dead Man didn’t get after her. Although, sometimes, he just doesn’t pay attention to anything but himself.
Mr. Gonlit does not know who John Stretch is. He does not care. One of the hard-nosed youngsters with ambitions toward Reliance’s throne, if you care to call it that. A somewhat naive youngster willing to pay part of Mr. Gonlit’s fee up front.
Mr. Gonlit enjoyed a wonderful gourmet dinner last night. He followed it with a bottle of TunFaire Gold and a deep pipe filled with the finest imported broadleaf tobacco. Probably a Postersaldt. Now Mr. Gonlit finds himself in a position where he has to deliver something that will please John Stretch.
“Hey, Bic. You know we warned you to back away from us.”
Gonlit shrugged. “People warn you off, pal. I don’t recollect you ever running away.”
That stuff is pretty obnoxious when somebody else is throwing it into your face.
“Must be the boots talking, Bic. Making you braver than you ought to be.”
“What’re you gonna do, pal? Send me to the Cantard?”
Bic tried hard not to betray his interest in the silver elf woman. Her interest in Bic, however, was both frank, blatant, and troubled. The manly posturing thing seemed both to excite and repel her. She was eager to see what happened next.
“There’s an original question, Bic. Well, I have work to do. Errands to run. I hope you took that John Stretch for a potful of gold. By the time I get back home you’ll probably be unemployed. Kip! Where the hell are you? Get your sorry ass re
ady. I’m taking you home.” With a side trip to The Palms along the way, of course.
I needed to see my old buddy, my pal, Morley the celery stalker and carrot killer.
55
I passed the word to Morley. “The number one boy out to scrub Reliance is a rat who calls himself John Stretch.”
“That’s cute. What’ve you been up to?”
“I thought Reliance might be interested. What do you think? How do you mean, up to? Why do you want to know?”
“We’ve had some unusual people turn up here the last couple of nights. They’re the sort who dress up in black and manage to suck all the joy out of a room just by entering it.”
“Why would they come here?”
“I thought you might be able to tell me.”
“Not a clue here.” And I really didn’t have one.
“That the kid you were looking for?”
“The very one. Am I good, or what?”
“So you got him back.”
“Damn me with faint praise if you want. I’m taking him home to his mother now.”
“You think he’s smart enough to make it there, then?” Kip had just done something to test Sarge’s patience.
“I have hopes. I’m counting on his ego. And once I’m shut of him I’ll be the happiest boy in town. I’d go on a toot if I didn’t have work to do.”
“Ooh! You have another job lined up already?”
“Nope. Just studying the excesses of the rest of you. I’m considering entrepreneur stuff. Because I’m going into business for myself.”
Morley looked at me for a while. “All right. This ought to be entertaining.”
“What? You don’t think I can be a serious businessman?”
“No. Because a serious businessman has to stay sober most of the time. A serious businessman has to make his decisions untouched by emotion. And, most of all, a serious businessman has to work. All day, every day, enduring longer hours than the most dedicated character on his payroll.”
I took a deep, cleansing breath, sighed. “O ye of little faith.”