Dread Brass Shadows (16 page)

I’d come with Winger hoping to ask some questions. Now I didn’t care. All I wanted was out. Things were sane outside. There were thunder-lizards in the air for the first time since TunFaire’s founding. There were thunder-lizards at the gates. There were centaurs in the streets There were saber-tooth tigers and mammoths and morCartha and gnomes. My friends had disappeared. Crask and Sadler were acting spookier than ever. But it was sane out there. I could survive in that world out there I told Winger, “I’m thinking about becoming a bricklayer Bricklayers don’t have these problems.”

She shrugged, kept staring at Easterman like he was a genius revealing the secrets of the universe. Maybe she understood him. She was a little bit twitchy herself.

I gave up and more or less went to sleep on my feet, paying just enough attention so nobody walked up and bopped me with a battle-ax without me noticing. I stayed only because Winger wasn’t ready to leave. I couldn’t leave her with this spook. He might hold a virgin sacrifice, figuring, hell, she used to be and maybe that was close enough Also, she knew something I wanted to know.

Easterman finished having his fit. “Well, sir. Well,” he said, not the least embarrassed. “Do we have an understanding, then?”

“No.”

His people did manage to be embarrassed. But they covered it and didn’t walk out. I suppose he paid very well indeed. He’d have to.

He looked puzzled. As much as he could with all that fat to mask expression “I thought I made myself crystal clear, sir.”

“If you made a lick of sense somewhere, I missed it in the smoke.”

“Garrett!” Winger cried.

Easterman smiled again. I think that was a smile back in there “Very well, sir. In words even you will understand, then. I want that book. I mean to have that book. I get what I want. Those who help me to obtain it will be well rewarded. Those who attempt to thwart me will not be so fortunate. Is that clear enough?”

“I got it.” I returned his smile. “I’ll pass the word to Chodo Contague and the Serpent if I run into them I’m sure it’ll set them to shaking in their boots so bad they’ll scurry out of the way so you’ll have an open field.” Threat and counter. All very friendly, with knives held behind our backs.

Winger started apologizing for my barbarism. The more I saw of her, the more I couldn’t figure her out.

“No matter, child. No matter. The man has an image to maintain. As we all do, of course. As we all do. Very well, sir. I think our business is quite concluded. We understand one another. I was about to dine. Will you join me? I do set a fine table.”

I pleaded press of business. I didn’t warn to see what kind of table this creep set. Could be hazardous. Wasn’t lunch time, anyway.

“Very well, sir. As you will. I hope to be seeing you again soon, in circumstances profitable to us all. Plague.”

He gestured at the cadaverous old man. “Escort our guests, if you will.”

The old man bowed, then led me and Winger to the castle gate. I kept a sharp eye on the old boy. I didn’t need to get pushed through any secret doors. I tried making conversation about his boss. He wasn’t having any. Maybe that wasn’t smart for a guy in his position.

Winger took up the slack. “I’m disappointed in you.”

“I’m disappointed in me a lot, too. What did I do to break your heart?”

“That guy is a ripe fruit.”

“A whole orchard.”

“Worked right . . .”

“I couldn’t take the clown. He could probably tell me something I need to know, but I’d like to hold his toes in a fire for a while.”

“Garrett!”

“You got yourself tied in with a loony, Winger. He’ll get you killed. I’ll take your word you weren’t working with those guys who chased me a while back. But I noticed some of them were there, hanging around in the background. You better keep your eyes open.” I had a feeling they’d been dogging her since Easterman hired her. A character like him would use a tactic like that.

I had no sympathy for Fido. I didn’t owe him squat. And now I had an idea who’d done Squirrel. I’d pass it on next time I saw Crask or Sadler.

We got out of that bughouse. I didn’t look back. “Winger, you know anything about the book?”

“Only that it’s supposed to be about so by so and weigh fifteen to twenty pounds. The pages are brass.”

“Brass. Brass shadows. It’s what the dwarves call a book of shadows. Each page has a character described on it. Whoever reads the page can become the character written there.”

“Say what?”

We were safely away, without any tail I could spot. I led her to the steps of a public building. They still consider public buildings public here For now. Subjects gather on the steps. Sometimes they live there in good weather. We could plant ourselves and talk without getting bashed over the head and told to move along by the hired thugs who police the Hill’s streets. “Think about it, sweetheart.”

“About what? How?”

“Say a guy has a dream. No matter how crazy the guy or how insane the dream. Eh? Then all of a sudden he gets a real chance to grab it. Eh?”

“You lost me, Garrett.”

I didn’t think she was that slow. I played it out, explained a little more about what the book was supposed to be. “That creep Fido wants to be a wicked wizard more than anything in the world. But he doesn’t have the talent it takes to trip over his own feet. He’s so bad at what he wants it’s almost easy to feel sorry for him. Almost. But I can’t when it comes to the Book of Shadows. A nut like him gets it . . .”

Her eyes widened. “Oh.”

“Oh. Yeah. You got it. But he doesn’t have the book. Yet. We know that for sure because he’s so crazy he’d be taking his wicked-wizard act all over town if he did.”

“Let me think about this, Garrett.”

“You know him better than I do.”

“I said let me think.” Her face furrowed up exactly the way Saucerheads does when he concentrates. I had a feeling she was like Tharpe in ways other than size. She’d be one of those who think slow but steady, sometimes getting there more surely than those of us who are quicker of wit.

After a while I said, “He must have been in touch with Blaine sometime. Else how would he know about the book?”

“Yeah. Blaine did offer to sell it to him, I think. But something happened. He backed off.”

“And got killed for his trouble.”

“My fault, probably I found Blaine for Lubbock.”

“Huh?”

“I told you, I’m a manhunter. He wanted Blaine found, I found Blaine.”

I glimmed Easterman’s hangout. It wasn’t far away. Not far enough. Somebody was up top trying to lure a flying thunder-lizard down. I guess Fido wanted to catch him his very own dragon.

“But he didn’t get the book.”

“I guess not. I don’t know why. Unless Blaine spotted me and guessed who I was.”

Curious. Blaine hadn’t had the book when they’d killed him, logically. But he’d had it earlier, and had tried to use it, because he’d been Carla Undo when he’d stumbled into my house. The Serpent couldn’t have it any more than Fido did, else she wouldn’t be trying to kill me. She’d be headed out of town.

Gnorst? I’d seen no evidence he was even looking. I’d guess he didn’t have it, either.

So where the hell did it go?

Why should I care? Tinnie was going to be all right.

I asked, “You think anybody ought to have that kind of power?”

“Me, I could handle it. But I don’t know nobody else I’d trust.”

“And I don’t know about you.”

“How much you pay me not to find it?”

“What?”

“I come to the city for the money, Garrett. Not to save the world.”

“I like a straightforward thinker. I like a girl who has her priorities straight and knows what she wants. I’ll give you a straight answer. Not a copper. You don’t have a glimmer where it is.”

“But I will I find things real good. Tell you what. When I find it, I’ll give you a chance to outbid Lubbock.”

“And the Serpent? You maybe ought to think about that some. While you’re at it, think about what happened to Blaine.”

“That’s no problem.”

“Look, Winger, it’s stupid not to be scared. There’s some bad people in this town. And you got some of the baddest looking for you. On account of Squirrel. If they catch up with you, you can kiss your tail good-bye.” I mentioned it because once again I’d glimpsed somebody who looked like Crask.

“I can take care of myself.”

“I saw, when you tried to jump me.”

“Damn it, Garrett, I’m not your responsibility. Back off”

Something about the way she flared there, and her choice of words, made me wonder if the Winger I was seeing was the real Winger. “All right. All right. Tell me where those dwarves went.”

“Twenty marks.”

“Mercenary bitch. You’d sell your own mother.”

“If the price was right. Two marks. To cover expenses. Won’t do you much good. She’s dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh, she’s still breathing. She’s just been dead from the chin up for the last thirty years. All she knows how to do is whine and bitch and make babies. Sixteen, last time I counted. Probably a couple more by now. Her almost bleeding to death having the fourteenth, then keeping on pumping them out, was what made up my mind I didn’t want to be like her”

“Twenty marks.” I didn’t blame her. Peasants live short and ugly lives, uglier for the women. Maybe she didn’t have anything to lose, considering. “But I don’t have it on me right now.”

“I’ll trust you. They say your word is good. Just don’t get yourself croaked before I can collect.”

“So talk to me. Where are they?”

“You going there right now?”

“Yeah. If you tell me.”

“Mind if I just show you? Might find me something interesting, too.”

25

We’d hardly begun walking. Suddenly people started running around cackling at each other like the world’s biggest chicken herd. They didn’t act scared, they just wanted to know what was happening. Me too, you bet. I got no sense from the confusion till everybody stopped, faced the same way, and pointed.

The shadows came first, rippling over us. Then came the monsters, out of the morning sun, a good dozen of them. Instead of drifting way up high, they were down at rooftop level, wing tip to wing tip, necks snaky and heads darting around. They screeched as they went over. MorCartha appeared from nowhere, diving for safety below.

Nobody panicked. There ‘was no cause. Those things were big but not massive. They couldn’t carry anyone off. Maybe a cat or small dog. They didn’t have the wing power to go flapping away with anything heavier.

Somebody nearby observed, “They’re cleaning out the pigeons.” Which was why their heads were darting around. “One comes along ahead of the others and flushes those feathered rats, then the rest get them on the fly.”

Somebody else said, “I hear they’s a bunch of the big meat-eaters in the hills up north.”

Grimmer news, that. Some of those critters stand thirty feet tall, weigh a dozen tons, and snack on mammoths. The farmers would be in for some excitement. I told Winger, “There you go, you want to make money. I know a guy pays prime rates for thunder-lizard hides.” Willard Tate used thunder-lizard leather for the soles of army boots.

Winger spat. “Easier money here.” Like I’d made a serious suggestion. Not subtle, friend Winger.

We started moving again. When we hit a quiet stretch, she said, “I didn’t know you had those things around here.”

“We don’t. Usually. Something must be pushing them south. They don’t like it down here. Too cold and unfriendly.”

Which sparked a thought. If there were big carnivores rampaging through the hills, they wouldn’t last. One chilly night and that would be that. The farmers would sneak around and feed them a few hundred pounds of poisoned steel while they were too sluggish to protect themselves Then Old Man Tate would find himself with more hides than he could handle.

One reason thunder-lizards stay away from the sapient races is they always get the dirty end They’re pretty dim, but they’ve learned that Teeth and claws and mass are only so much use against brains and sorcery and sharp, poisoned steel.

Which is another reason we didn’t see much fear. Not to mention the fact that TunFaire is surrounded by a wall no thunder-lizard could climb.

The excitement made it difficult to tell if we were being tailed, by Fido’s boys or Chodo’s. I took it for granted we had company. I worried more about Easterman’s clowns than Chodo’s troops. The latter would be pros. They’d be predictable. All I knew about the brunos was that they could be deadly.

As we walked I hammered away at Winger, trying to get through. She couldn’t believe things were as black as I claimed. She didn’t understand how potent the Book of Dreams could be. Or she didn’t want to.

We’d just passed Lettie Faren’s cathouse, which clings to the skirts of the Hill like a malignant parasite, and I’d started telling Winger a story about something that had happened there. I was worried about the woman. She didn’t get the chuckle she should have. . . . Sadler stepped out of an alley. Just for a second. Nothing special to someone who didn’t know him. But I knew him. I glanced back. I doubted any tail would have spotted him.

He wanted to talk to me. Did I want to talk to him? Particularly, did I want to walk down a dark alley with him?

Well, maybe I could get him off my tail. “Winger, I got to see a man about a dog. Hang on a minute.” I headed toward that alley hitching my pants. Watchers would buy it if I didn’t take all day.

I was at a disadvantage stepping out of the brightness into shadow. If Sadler wanted me, he had me. I said, “Make it fast

“Right. Heard you had a close scrape.”

“Yeah. Dwarves. Again.”

“I heard. That the woman we been looking for?”

“The very one. Only she didn’t cut Squirrel. I think I know who did. Brunos who work for a guy called Fido Easterman.”

He snickered. “Fido?”

“It’s an imperial title. Don’t make mock. Yeah. He’s crazy as a platoon of loons. Real candidate for the ha-ha house. Got a place up the Hill looks like a haunted castle. Wants to be an evil sorcerer.”

“He isn’t?”