Dread Brass Shadows (15 page)

She shrugged. “Maybe not. But if I go, I’ll check out doing what I want to do, not worn out from pulling a plow and making babies.”

She had a point. One of the reasons I do what I do is because I get to be my own boss, not a creature caught up in a web of commitments and responsibilities. “I got you.”

“It’s tomorrow, Garrett. And Lubbock is getting impatient.”

Tough, I thought. I said, “All right. Lead on.”

She headed toward the Hill. I let her lead and set the pace, kept my mouth shut. She walked like she was still behind a plow. Kind of a waste. If you took time to look her over, you saw she wasn’t a bad-looking woman at all, just put together on a large scale. Way too big for my taste. I figured she would clean up pretty nice. If she wanted.

I asked, “You happen to get a look at those clowns who were sniping at me off that roof?”

She grinned. “I did better than that, Garrett. I ambushed them when they came down. Kicked their butts and broke their toys.”

“All of them?”

“There was only four of them. Little hairy fellas. Stubborn. Trick with them is, stay in too close for them to use them crossbows but don’t get so close they can reach you. Work on them with your feet.” She skipped, kicked a foot high. I hadn’t seen boots like those since I got out of the Marines. Those would do a job on somebody. If you had the strength to lift them.

“How come you did that?”

“They was horning in on my game. You ain’t no good to me full of them little arrows.”

“I wouldn’t be much good to me, either. Wish I knew where they came from.”

“Them fuzzballs?”

“The very ones, Winger. That makes three times they’ve come after me.” Recalling that I started watching my surroundings with more enthusiasm.

We were headed toward the Hill. Her principal had to be a stormwarden or firelord or . . . I tried to recall which of our sorcerer elite might be in town. I couldn’t think of a one. Everybody who was anybody and old enough was down in the Cantard helping hunt Glory Mooncalled.

If I was the political type, I’d figure this was a great time for an uprising. Our masters hadn’t left anyone to keep us in line. But I’m not a political type. And neither is anyone else. So we’ll just keep going on going on the way we’ve always gone on—unless Mooncalled pulls off his greatest coup yet and arranges it so none of -them come home.

After deliberating, Winger told me, “I don’t know where they come from, Garrett. But I got a good idea where they went.”

“Ah?” Turn up the charm and cunning, Garrett. Shuck and jive this rube right out of her socks.

“Twenty marks. Silver. After you see Lubbock.”

I’m nothing if not adaptable. “I’ll give you three.” I wasn’t carrying much more than that.

“It’s your ass. You don’t figure it’s worth twenty marks, I’m not going to argue with you.”

Some of these rubes have a certain low cunning and a nose for sniffing profit out of disaster. “Make it five, then.”

She didn’t say anything, just led me on toward the Hill. All right. She’d come around. Five marks was a lot of money to a country girl.

A couple of dwarves ambled across an intersection ahead. I blurted, “Ten.” And they hadn’t even looked our way. Hell, they never did. They were just a couple of short businessmen.

Winger ignored me.

All right. I know. I gave myself away there. But I was nervous. You’d be nervous if you had dwarves trying to poop you every time you stuck your head out of the house.

Dean doesn’t let me do the marketing, either.

I didn’t let up on keeping a lookout. Not for a second. I didn’t see anything disturbing, either, except once I caught a glimpse of a guy who could have been Crask, but he was a block away and I couldn’t be sure. I did grin, though. That might be something to bargain with.

24

I stopped, studied our destination.

“Come on, Garrett. Quit farting around.”

“I want to look it over first.” The place looked like some nut’s idea of a haunted castle, in miniature, a hangout for runt werewolves and vampires too limp of wrist to fly. It was a castle, all right, but no bigger than the surrounding mansions. About quarter scale. All black stone and dirty. “Cheerful little bungalow. This where Lubbock lives?” I’d seen the place before but hadn’t paid attention. Just another hangout for some nut on the Hill. I knew nothing about it.

“Yeah. He owns it. Only, tell you the truth, I don’t think his name is really Lubbock.”

“No! Really?”

She gave me a double dirty look.

“What do you know about him?”

“He’s in metals smelting. That’s his business, I mean. Royal contracts. Very rich. I picked that up keeping my ears open. He’s a little peculiar.”

“I’ll say.”

“Try to keep a straight face.”

I started moving again. Slowly.

I expected zombie guards at the gate. Maybe gnome zombies, since the place was so shrunk down.

Black steel bars covered its few windows. A toy drawbridge spanned a toy moat five feet wide. Nonhuman, fangy skulls hung over the gate. Smoke dribbled out of their nose holes. Oily torches burned in broad daylight. Somewhere a group of musicians played spooky music. A dozen morCartha perched on the battlements, living gargoyles. I’ll say somebody was peculiar.

A guy who goes to live on the Hill usually buys or builds his dream house there. I stopped, considered the morCartha. They seemed lethargic beyond what was to be explained by the fact that it was daytime. Winger said, “Let’s don’t stand around in the street.” She crossed the drawbridge without a qualm. “You coming?”

“Yeah. But I’m beginning to wonder if this is such a bright idea.”

She laughed. “Stop worrying. It’s all for show. He’s a crackpot. He likes to dress up and play sorcerer but the only magic he can do is make food disappear.”

Probably so. If he had any real talent, he’d be in the Cantard trying to outwaltz Glory Mooncalled.

A cadaverous old guy met us. Without a word he led us to a small, spooky receiving room. The walls were decorated with whips and chains and antique instruments whose function I didn’t even want to guess. By way of art there was a rogue’s gallery of demonic portraiture. Also a couple of real people I probably should have known, did I pay much attention to history. They looked like they’d shaped our past.

Lubbock joined us.

He made the Dead Man look slim and trim. He had to go six hundred pounds if he went a stone. He wore a silly black wizard’s outfit that looked like he’d made it himself. It had enough material in it to provide tents for a battalion. The powers that be got wind of it, they’d have him up on charges of hoarding.

Lubbock smiled a smile that got lost in the ruddy landscape of his face. It made me think of the wax dripping down around the top of a candle. “Ah, Winger. You’ve managed to get the man here at last. Pay her, Pestilence.” A woman who looked like she might be the old guide’s grandmother brought Winger a small leather bag. Winger made it disappear fast.

“Mr. Garrett.” Lubbock tried to bow. I tried to keep a straight face. Neither of us was completely successful, though I managed well enough.

That old boy had one spooky voice. It sent chills scampering around my back. I bet he spent hours practicing to get that effect. “I had begun to wonder if I hadn’t made a mistake employing you.”

I thought she’d made the mistake, taking him on as an employer. But sometimes you have to do what you have to do to keep body and soul together. I asked, “How you doing, Lubbock?”

He threw up his hands and crossed his wrists in front of his heart, palms toward me. He made fists but left his little fingers standing. He waggled his pinkies furiously. He had nails almost two inches long. I guessed that was some kind of sorcerer’s move. I think I was supposed to be impressed.

And some people I know say
I
belong in the Bledsoe cackle factory because I don’t have a firm grasp on reality.

Winger whispered, “At least pretend to be courteous, Garrett.”

“I asked him how he was when I don’t care, didn’t I? What more do you want?” Blame it on nerves. When people give me the creeps, I get flip. “Get him talking.” I wanted answers from Lubbock but had the heebie-jeebies bad enough to think of walking.

He got himself started. “Mr. Garrett,” again. “Good day. I have awaited our meeting anxiously.”

“Pleased to meet you. Whoever you are.” See? Courteous. I could have said
whatever
you are.

Another smile tried to break through and died young, smothered by fat. “Yes. As you surmise, my name is not Lubbock. No sir. That is merely wishful thinking, the heartfelt desire to walk the same path as the great Lubbocks of centuries past.”

He rolled his fists over heel to heel with their backs toward me, looked at me between raised forefingers that, more or less, made the ancient sign against the evil eye. “Unfortunately, my dream is denied me by harsh reality.”

I recalled Willard Tate mentioning a couple of dead double nasties named Lubbock. Sorcerer types. This guy obviously had less talent than I do. His harsh reality. So he was playing some whacky game. If you’re rich enough, you’re allowed.

“As you surmise, sir,” he repeated, “my name is not Lubbock. Hiding the truth from a man of your profession would be foolish. You need but poll the neighbors to learn that madman Fido Easterman lives here.”

“Fido?” People don’t even name their dogs Fido anymore.

“It means Faithful, Mr. Garrett Yes sir. Faithful. My father, rest his soul, was an aficionado of imperial history. Fido was an imperial honorarium. Rather like a knighthood today. Though it could be bestowed upon anyone, not Just those nobly born. Yes sir. The man whose name I took in vein, like a momentary domino, my kinsman Lubbock Candide, attained that very distinction. He was an ancestor of mine, you know. The glittering star atop my family tree. Yes sir. But the power in the blood failed after his daughter, Arachne. How I abuse the gods for that jest.”

Man. This clown was a one-man gale. “What’s that got to do with me?” Trying to get to the point. “Why am I here?” I tried to figure the color of his eyes. I couldn’t make them out behind all that fat

“Patience, my boy. Patience. One never hurries the headsman.” He chuckled wickedly. “Just my little joke, sir. Just my little joke. You are in no danger here

Like hell. Wouldn’t take too much of this to get me foaming at the mouth and talking to little men who weren’t there.

I kept an eye on the staff. They came and went in the background, eager to see their boss in action. He was a real three-ringer They all wore costumes and spooky makeup. Easterman could afford to pay people to pretend that he was bad.

Hell, maybe he was. In a more mundane way. Amongst the remote voyeurs I spotted one of the men who had chased me away from my place.

Don’t call him crazy, though. The Eastermans of the world are never crazy. When you have money, you’re eccentric

“Fido Easterman, yes sir “ He put all his fingers together and made a spider doing push-ups on a mirror.

Then he pulled his hands apart slowly, as though he was pulling against tremendous forces. His fingers shook like he was coming down with a disease.

“I’ve been hearing rumors about a marvelous book, Mr. Garrett. Yes sir, a masterpiece. I wish to obtain that book, sir. I will pay very well indeed to obtain it. Winger has been doing my legwork for me, searching. As you can see, I am not cut out for strenuous effort, however much I might wish it to be otherwise. She has been hunting diligently, of course hoping to separate me from a substantial portion of my wealth. But fortune has not been kind to her. Her only success has been to discover that you may have some knowledge of the book’s whereabouts.” He beamed at me Before I could get a word in, he continued, “Well, then, sir, from what I have learned of your situation, it’s likely you could use a substantial sum. Paid in the metal of your choice.”

“I sure could. I wish I had something to sell. I don’t know where she got the idea I know anything about any book.”

“Come, sir. Come. Let us not play games with one another. Let us not bandy words I have said that I will pay well to obtain that book, and I will. My word is good, as any fool can discover by posing a few questions in the ores and metals community. But if you do go asking about me there, you will also discover that I have a reputation for getting what I want.”

I didn’t doubt it a bit “All I can tell you about the book is that it exists, maybe, supposedly incomplete. But I don’t have the faintest idea where.”

“Come, sir. Surely you don’t expect me to . . .”

“I don’t expect you to do anything but stay out of my hair.”

“Sir . . .”

“I told you I don’t know where it is. You did some checking on me, eh7 I tell the truth? The truth is, I was looking for it myself. For a client. I succeeded only in finding the man who stole it.”

“Ah, sir. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“We’re getting nowhere The guy was dead.”

He chuckled. “Unfortunate. Most unfortunate.” I got the feeling this wasn’t news.

I spotted another of those guys who had chased me. It finally sank in. Here was my third force. This nut and his brunos. Those guys probably sent Blaine to the promised land. Maybe they’d done the same with Squirrel. I said, “I don’t want anything more to do with this book. It’s gotten a bunch of people killed already. It’s got the Dwarf Fort dwarves on the warpath. It’s got Chodo Contague out for blood because one of his men got cut.” That got a small reaction. “It’s got a witch called the Serpent and a bunch of renegade dwarves running around the city sniping with crossbows. I don’t need to get in the middle of any of that.”

Easterman closed his eyes and started talking. Actually, he made some kind of speech, but it wasn’t in Karentine. I’d guess Old Forens, which is still around as a liturgical language amongst some of the more staid of TunFaire’s thousand cults. I don’t know ten words of Old Forens but I’ve heard it used and this had that cadence.

Good old Fido was a linguist like he was a sorcerer. But what he lacked in talent he made up in enthusiasm. He howled and foamed at the mouth.