16

For a couple of sceats No-Neck showed me both the former Shayir temple and the Godoroth.

“Couple of real dumps,” I said. “Tell me what you know about these gods.” Thought I would catch him while he had a grateful glow on. I glanced around. Once you have experienced Chattaree it is hard to imagine such squalor.

“Cain’t tell you jack, pal. Wisht I could. But it ain’t smart even ta name names, like Strayer, or Chanter, or Nog the Inescapable. Dey is nasty as hell, all a dem.”

“That’s no surprise.”

The Shayir and Godoroth were competing for the last hovel on the Street. It was beyond the levee, leaned out over the river on rotting piles fifteen feet tall. One good flood surge and it would be gone. But it was home to the Godoroth, I guess, and nobody wants to get kicked out of their own house.

No-Neck told me, “Bot’ places is closed down. Dey’ll open back up in a couple days.”

“Under new management?”

No-Neck frowned. He didn’t have a lot of brain left over to untangle jokes and decipher sarcasms.

I asked, “Any reason I can’t go in and look around?” There were no physical locks on the doors.

“You’d be trespassing.”

Right on top of it, my man No-Neck.

“I wasn’t planning to touch anything. I just want to see the setups. For my client’s information.”

“Uhm.” He focused his intellect, frowning, investing heavily for a small return. The No-Necks of the world are great for getting work done as long as they have somebody to tell them what to do.

“I don’t tink I unnerstand what you do.”

I explained, not for the first time since we teamed up. I said, “It’s like being a private soldier. A client hires me, I’m his one-man army, except I don’t bust heads or break arms, I just find out things. The client I have now wants to find out as much as he can about these two cults.”

No-Neck made a connection. “Like dat might be somebody what has to help decide who gets dat last temple.”

“There you go.” Far be it from me to disabuse a man of an erroneous intuition. Not that he was entirely off the mark.

“I guess it cain’t hurt. You ain’t involved wit’ dem. If you was involved wit’ dem I’d hafta raise a holler on account of some of dese gods would do any damned ting to stay on da Street.”

“Ain’t dat da troot.” If you are big time, going off with the holy rutabagas won’t get you no respect at all. Better gone than playing out of the Dream Quarter.

“Well, den let’s look in dat dere place where da Shayir got bounced. But I guarantee you ain’t gonna see nuttin’ exciting.”

We went into the Shayir place. Always quick on the uptake, I muttered, “Not going to find anything exciting here.”

“Cleaned it out.” No-Neck had a trained eye, too.

The dump was as bare as a thousand-year-old thunder lizard thigh bone, emptier than No-Neck’s head. He said, “We done took all da stuff down to da place at da end. Goin’ ta paint and fix up here.”

I glanced right. I glanced left. I didn’t stand all the way up because the ceiling was too low. The place was barely fifteen by twelve, last stronghold of an ancient religion, first bridgehead of a new one. It seemed touched by the same sad desperation you see in middle-aged men and women who can’t let go of a youth that has long since stolen away.

“So let’s stroll over there and count the silver.”

“Silver? Dese is small gods, Garrett. Dey probably didn’t even have no copper. Down here dey’re da kind we call pewter gods. Petty pewter gods. Da pot metal boys.” He leaned close, ready with a garlicky confidence. “You never say dat where dey might hear you, dough. Da fard’er dey slip da more dey demand respect, got it coming or not. You go on up dere to da high end of da Street, dem gods you don’t never see no proof dey even exist. Dey ain’t got time to be bodered. Down here, dough, dey might be running deir own bingos. And you better not cut dem where dey can hear it.”

That sounded like a notion worth keeping in mind.

“I been front wit’ you, Garrett. Tell me something straight.”

“I’ll try.”

“How come you got dat stupid stuffed bird on your shoulder?”

The Goddamn Parrot. T. G. was being so good I’d forgotten him. “He isn’t stuffed. He’s just pretending.” What the hell. I plucked the bird and studied him as we climbed crumbling steps on the face of the levee. They were the conclusion of the Street. No repairs had been offered them in recent lifetimes. The smell of river mud hung like an all-pervading mist. The air was thick with the flies that breed in the mud. They were nasty, hungry little flies.

The Goddamn Parrot was breathing, but his eyes were milky. “Hey, bird. Show some life. Got a man here wants to hear one of your jokes.”

That flashy jungle chicken didn’t make a sound.

“Just like a kid, eh?”

“How’s that?”

“Clever as he can be when dere’s nobody dere but you. Clams if you want him to show off.” Maybe No-Neck was not as dense as he let on.

“You got it. Most of the time you got to hold him under water to shut him up. Got a mouth like a dock walloper. Gad! This place is a dump.” The Godoroth temple hadn’t been cleared, the movers had just piled the Shayir stuff inside where it could be unpacked or chunked in the river if things turned out that way. All the rats and roaches and filth were still on the job. No broom had gotten past the threshold any year recently. Definitely a place with character.

No-Neck chuckled. “Way I hear, da Godoroth got only one worshipper left, some old goof on the Hill wit’ so much juice he’s kept dem on way past dere time already. Say he was around when dey built dis burg. Been in a wheelchair more dan tirty years.”

“And the gods won’t sully their fingers cleaning up around here.”

“You got it. Won’t even run a message to dis dink when I want to offer to take care of da place for a reasonable retainer.”

“Sounds like they’re their own worst enemies.” I put the Goddamn Parrot back on my shoulder. All that vulture was going to do was breathe.

“You just said a mout’ful. I been working da Dream Quarter tweny-eight years. You tink people fool demselves, you hang out down here, see what da gods do.”

“You actually see them?”

He gave me a funny look. “You don’t know much about how tings work here, do you?”

“No. I’m perfectly happy to let the gods ignore me, same as I ignore them.”

“You cain’t see dem. Not unless’n dey done gone to a lot of trouble to touch you, or you been working here a long time, like me. Den you maybe see shadows and glimmers or hear whispers or get chills and the willies. We could have a whole gang of dem standing around here right now . . . Well, way I hear, dey wouldn’t actually be standing. Shapes like dem little idol tings, dat’s what dey might do if dey decided to come out and be visible a while.”

I picked up a statue that had to be Magodor. Maggie was not a pretty girl. Her idol had more snakes, more fangs, more arms and claws than she had shown me. “How would you like this for a girlfriend?”

“Way da myts go, I wouldn’t get dat close. Dat one’s like a spider. Any mortals what do survive her, dey say she ruins for any mortal woman.”

I examined one statuette after another. The ugly guys were even uglier, too. “Fun-looking bunch.”

“Dem idols don’t do dem justice, what da myts say.”

“Bad?”

“Very. But dis one, she’s da one I dream about. Call her Star.”

“I’ve heard about her. I know what you mean. What about the boss couple? Imar and Imara? Big and dumb is my impression.”

“Imar is your old-time always-pissed-off kind of god, real pain in da ass, loves da smell of burnt flesh, which is maybe why da Godorot’ don’t got dat many worshippers anymore.”

“How about the Shayir? I know nothing about them. Who are they? How many of them are there? They have any really special attributes? Are they different from other gods? These Godoroth, overall, aren’t anything special. There are gods or saints like them in most religions.”

“Da Shayir ain’t dat unusual neither. Well, Torbit the Strayer and Quilraq the Shadow, dey’re weird. And Black Mona. But da All-Father god is Lang. He probably hatched out of da same egg as Imar. Dey even look alike.”

No-Neck was not shy about digging in the boxes rilled with Shayir relics. I wondered if he had rummaged through them before, supplementing his income. “Here. Here’s all da idols.” He held up one that did look just like the Imar idol up where the altar was.

“Let me see that.” I upended Lang, probably an act of deadly disrespect. Sure enough, there was a dwarfish hallmark on the base, along with a date. That was dwarfish, too, but no mystery. Most scholars use the dwarfish dating system because human dating is so confusing, especially back a few centuries when every petty prince and tyrant insisted on setting dates based on his own birth or ascension.

I handed Lang back, went to the altar. The dust was thick. I sneezed, grabbed Imar, treated him with the same lack of respect that I had shown Lang. “Well. What do you know.” Imar had the same hallmark and some of the same mold markings, though an earlier date. I could see the dwarves snickering. Stupid humans. Maybe there were thirty gods in the Dream Quarter who all looked exactly alike.

I wished I knew a good theologian. He could tell me how much a god’s idol influenced his shape and attributes. Be funny if the gods headed downhill were on the skids because some mass-market idols of dwarfish manufacture didn’t distinguish the little quirks that made an Imar an entirely different menace from a Lang.

“Can you read?” I gave a thousand to one in my mind.

“Never had da time to learn.” I win. “Even when I was down to da Cantard and dey was trying to teach guys, just to keep dem out of trouble in da waiting time, I never got da time. How come you ask?”

“These idols came out of the same workshop. Out of the same mold. If you could read I’d ask you to look through the records, maybe find me something there.”

No-Neck snickered. “You gonna tip me a reasonable tip for helping you out, Garrett?”

“Yeah. After I finish looking through this Shayir stuff.” The Shayir were rich compared to the Godoroth. And even homelier, if their idols were accurate.

“You give me a good tip, you come on over to Stuggie Martin’s, we can toss back a couple. I’ll tell you how silly dis all gets around here sometimes.”

“Sounds like a winner. If Stuggie Martin can draw a decent pint of dark.”

“Top o’ da line. Weider’s.”

Wouldn’t you know?

17

After a few mugs, No-Neck and I had become friends for life. I told stories about my more outrageous cases. He told tales about his war days. I told stories about mine. Now that their hell is far enough away, I find that there are some memories worth saving. No-Neck told stories from his years in the Dream Quarter, and we giggled and laughed till the proprietor asked us to keep it down or do a stand-up so the whole place could enjoy our good humor. Sourpuss. Surprise! His name wasn’t Stuggie Martin. The real Stuggie Martin did own the place once upon a time, but nobody living remembered him. It was easier and cheaper to stay Stuggie Martin’s than it was to get a new sign.

All that fun and the Goddamn Parrot never horned in once. It was unnatural. I was beginning to wonder. Everybody in Stuggie Martin’s thought he was some kind of half-alive affectation till I got him his own mug.

I was a little dizzy and it was getting shadowy outside when I told No-Neck, “Man, I got to get going. My partner will be having fits. Da way dis ting scopes out, I can’t afford time to have a good time.” It was time to get away. I was starting to talk like him.

The Goddamn Parrot was on the table, working on his beer, showing more signs of life than he had for hours. The bird was partial to the Weider Dark, too, which is all I can say positive about that animate feather duster.

What had the Dead Man done? That devil bird talked in his sleep.

Something was going on, I didn’t have any idea what, and so what else was news?

An attraction that made Stuggie Martin’s a popular and upscale neighborhood hangout was an actual real glass window that let its patrons see the street outside. The window had lattices of ironwork protecting it inside and out, of course, and those didn’t enhance the view, but you could watch the world go by. The name of the street out there was regional, after a province, typical of that part of town. I wouldn’t remember it or be able to find it again, but that didn’t matter. What did matter was that when I glanced out the window into the provincial street, amidst evening’s shadows and oddly golden light, I spied that damned redhead whose twitching tail had lured me into this mess in the first place. She had taken station in a shadow across the way. The light didn’t play fair. She stood out like a troll at a fairy dance contest.

I beckoned Stuggie’s current successor, who had proven a fair keeper of the holy elixir, if short on good humor. “You got a back way out of here?”

He glanced at No-Neck, who put his seal of approval on me with a nod. “Sure. The back door.” Will wonders never cease?

I sucked down my beer, planted the Goddamn Parrot on my shoulder, said good-bye to No-Neck, scarfed the rest of the bird’s beer and headed out. My navigation was unstable but under control. I looked forward to getting home and taking a nine-hour nap. I was a little less than fully alert. For some reason I had become preoccupied with significant persons not of the male persuasion. That can be the downside of a few good mugs. You start thinking about serious stuff and don’t pay enough attention to what is happening around you.

I slid along the alley feeling totally cunning. If anybody was after me they would be watching the front door. Autumnal light illuminated the walls of the alley. Shadows played. I didn’t pay much mind. It was late in the day.

I slipped around a corner, said “Awk!” at the same time as the Goddamn Parrot, pranced to one side and started running.

A guy had been waiting for me. He looked more human than troll or giant, but he was twelve feet tall and carried an axe with a handle as long as me. It had a bizarre double head, big curved blades, some kind of runes worked into the metal, a spike on the end of the handle. The handle itself looked like ebony or ironwood also deeply worked with runes. Some were inlaid with paint or metal. The guy had a wild long red beard and, probably, equally wild hair, but his head and the top half of his face were hidden inside an iron helmet that Dean could have used for an oven. He must have ridden in on a dragon or a big blue cow.

Maybe he didn’t want me annoying his sister, following her around.

His clothes were not the height of fashion. Oh, maybe a thousand years ago, when people lived in caves and the badly-cured-hides look and smell was in. But not today, brother.

I had a hunch he was what I had smelled on my way down to the Dream Quarter.

The Goddamn Parrot came to life now. He flapped away. He squawked something outrageous at the big thing, distracting him for the moment I needed to get my rubber legs pumping. I banged into somebody. “What’s the matter with you, buddy?” I was lucky. He was just some guy headed home from work, who hadn’t had a bad day and was not in a belligerent mood.

“Sorry.” I glanced back. The big character was slapping at the Goddamn Parrot like the bird was some annoying insect and his axe was a flyswatter. I probably couldn’t have lifted the damned thing. He got a fix on me and started getting all that beef organized to head in my direction.

“Maybe keep an eye out where you’re going.” The working stiff headed right for the monster man, obviously not seeing a thing.

“Oh my,” I told me. “I guess I just met one of the Shayir.” I kept on moving as fast as wobble legs would allow.

Shadows and golden light ran with me. I suspected that meant something that might not be good.

A woman stepped into my path, possibly another version of the redhead I had tracked when the world was simple and gods were just bad practical jokes on the credulous. I faked left, got her off balance, and cut right. The Goddamn Parrot ripped past, flapping all out and cussing his fool head off. I would’ve cussed myself but needed to conserve my wind. I juked around a startled dwarf peddler and his cart full of knives, hurdled a water trough, zigged around an extremely short, fat character who might have been the world’s only bald and morbidly obese dwarf, banged into an alley, and did quick and wonderful things with my piece of rope. I vanished.

I tried to hold down the racket I made huffing and puffing as I worked my sack of invisibility back into the street and kept on moving.

The Goddamn Parrot screamed past again, not seeing me. Right behind him was the world’s biggest owl. A shadow flickered past. I looked up. Another owlish overachiever cruised at a higher altitude, watching. Neither owl was real maneuverable. The Goddamn Parrot cut a tight turn. The owl behind him didn’t make it. It banged into the side of a building, fell, looked foggy for a moment, like it was having trouble deciding what it wanted to be. The owl overhead took up the chase. It kept up easily on the straightaways.

Screeching like a sailor just awakening to find that last night’s sweet luck not only had vanished with his whole fortune but had left him a nasty rash as a memento, T. G. headed for home, abandoning me to my fate again.

A gang gathered. The big character with the axe rumbled like a pissed-off volcano. The redhead stood by herself in some shadows and looked pretty. The fat bald dwarf guy looked puzzled. The owl that had hit the wall wobbled through the air, alighted, fuzzily changed into a perky lovely who looked about seventeen and wore nothing but thin lavender gauze. Golden light and shadow coalesced to become a guy about seven feet tall who was naked to the waist and from the waist down was mostly shaggy brown fur and goatlike legs that ended in hooves. He and the reformed owl must have been in love. They couldn’t keep their hands off one another.

Nobody else could see them, but nobody walked through them either. Not that there was much traffic anyway. It seemed some message had gone out at an unconscious level and most humans were staying away.

The guy with the weird legs pointed to where I had been when I slipped into my invisibility sack. I couldn’t hear what he said, but his gestures gave me the gist.

He had seen me disappear. They all understood my limitations, obviously. They spread out and started feeling around for me. All but the young number. She turned into an owl and flew away, not in the direction the Goddamn Parrot had gone. My impression was that she was going after reinforcements.

I couldn’t outrun them without becoming visible again, where I couldn’t outrun them anyway. So I slid into the damp under a watering trough and got uncomfortable. I would try to wait them out.

They were stubborn. I guess you become patient when you are immortal. They knew I wasn’t moving fast or going far. Soon enough, too, I began to suspect they were only interested in keeping me contained while they waited.

That didn’t boost my confidence.

An owl arrived. She misted down and became another tasty delicacy wearing not much of anything. This was not the same sweetmeat as before. This one wore a different shade of purple.

The blind guys on the street were missing one hell of a show.

The faun guy—who actually bore only a passing resemblance to the faun tribesmen of the Arabrab Forests—seemed to bear no prejudice against this owl girl, nor she toward him. They engaged in a little heavy petting the others apparently failed to notice.

I began to study the lay of the land.

I wondered if the Goddamn Parrot had gotten away.

18

Soon I began to suspect that I had outwitted myself. I should have covered what ground I could. The Shayir lacked no confidence in the help that was coming.

I eased out of hiding, checked myself. Good. Mud had not clung to whatever surrounded me. I studied the Shayir. They had stopped poking and chattering, were looking out of the corners of their eyes or squinting like that might help them see me better. I guess they could sense that I was moving.

The first owl dropped out of the sky, changed, immediately started slapping the other girl away from the faun guy, who didn’t apologize at all. The huge guy rumbled like a volcano getting ready to belch, waved his axe. The air shrieked. Passersby heard and looked around nervously. The owl girl relented long enough to deliver whatever message she carried. The others looked smug.

Big trouble, Garrett.

What could I do to fool them?

I didn’t have a clue. Motion seemed the best course at the moment. I got over against a wall and drifted northward. Unlike the gods, I discovered, people who could not see me did not avoid me. Luckily, the guy I bumped was far gone. He mumbled an apology and stumbled on for another dozen steps before his jaw dropped and he looked around. I hoped the Shayir were not alert.

Just then some fool opened his front door but paused to yell back inside, reminding his missus of what a melonhead she was. The lady made a few pithy remarks by way of rebuttal. I took the opportunity to slide past the guy and invite myself into a tiny two-room flat that had to be the place where they made all the garlic sausage in the world. I felt a moment of sorrow on behalf of the couple who lived there. They hadn’t had time to pick up after the Great Earthquake yet. You know how it is. The centuries just slip away. There was stuff in there that had mold growing on its mold.

The woman sprawled on a mat on the floor. That mat had been chucked out by more than one previous owner. She didn’t care. She had one arm wrapped around a gallon of cheap wine while she soul-kissed its twin brother. She seemed accustomed to having invisible men move through the gloom around her. I positioned myself where I could watch the street through the peephole in the door, which was the only window that place had.

Right away I discovered that the skinny geek with wings on his head was peeking out of an alley half a block to the north. The Shayir spotted him about the same time, became agitated. The whole bunch surged toward that alley.

Winghead moved out.

The term “greased lightning” does not do him justice. He was a shadowy flicker moving between points. The weird herd rumbled after him, hollering and flailing bizarre weapons.

He had their full attention. I took my cue. I got out of my bag, so startling my roommate that she actually spilled a precious cup of wine. “Take it easy, lady. That stuff costs money.” I waved good-bye, stepped into the street like her man before me, walked off like I was just another local going about his business. I made believe I had a stone in one shoe. That altered my way of walking.

It worked.

Three blocks later I could not see an immortal anywhere. I settled into a trot, headed for home.

With a whoosh Winghead settled in to jog beside me. “Thanks,” I told him. He offered an enigmatic look and flickered into the distance ahead. He was not hard to track when you were behind him. He just dwindled fast. I slowed to a pace that didn’t mark me out from the crowd. I started feeling smug.

19

Owls have always been birds of ill omen, particularly when they fly by day. Owls were my first clue that I was, perhaps, premature in my self-congratulation. But the owls themselves were preceded by the uproar of a crowd of crows.

Crows are common, and they get rowdy when they get together, like teenage boys. They get triply rowdy when they find a feathered predator to pick on. Or two. Two familiar owls in this instance. And the crows were so numerous they attracted the attention of everyone in the street.

I listened to people talk. Nobody but me and the crows could see the owls. There was a lot of chatter about omens. It was a trying time. People would look anywhere for guidance. That ought to make religion and divination growth industries.

Maybe crows have better eyes than people, or maybe they just can’t be fooled. Of course, they could be semi-divine themselves. They and their cousins turn up in a lot of myths and religious stories.

They kept the owls on the move, which was dandy by me. They wouldn’t have time for aerial spotting.

I continued my jog, wondering if I might not have done better running back to the Dream Quarter. I could have taken refuge in one of the big temples where these small-timers couldn’t come after me.

I cut across Gravis Convent Market, where they had torn down an abandoned convent and used the brick to pave a square that became a flea market, thieves’ market, farmers’ market, haymarket, so people in the neighborhood would not have to walk miles to do their marketing. There must have been scandal and corruption involved, a construction scheme that fell apart, else the square would have been gone long since. Corruption and scandal are always involved in any public works scheme, sometimes so much so that they poison the well.

The square sinks a little toward its middle, probably settling where the convent’s vast basements had been filled with rubble. It is two hundred yards across. I was about twenty yards in when old Jorken Winghead zipped up. I was puffing heartily. He wasn’t breathing at all.

He suggested, “You should move faster.”

A genius. I glanced back.

He was right.

“Good idea.”

But not entirely practical. The square was packed ear to elbow with buyers and sellers and pickpockets and sightseers and people who just plain couldn’t think of anything else to do or anywhere else to go.

I glanced back again. Jorken was for sure right. New players had come onto the pitch for the Shayir. A woman on unicorn back, not wearing much but showing muscle tone on muscle tone, probably six and a half feet talk, dark as eggplant, iron helmet with a crescent moon up top, herself festooned with weapons and stuff. Ropes. Nets. A falcon. Dogs cavorting around her steed’s legs, critters that looked like half wolf and half whippet and were maybe big enough for dwarves to ride.

Well. Your basic huntress goddess. Probably with a list of nasty quirks, like most of the older deities. Ate her firstborn, or whatever.

Amidst the barking and yelping and galloping another form stood out, something like a haystack of black cloth with tails fluttering, dripping an occasional wisp of dark smoke, more floating than running. I saw no limbs, nor any face, but when I looked directly at it I staggered. A voice thundered inside my head. Nog is inescapable. The voice was like the Dead Man’s, only with mental bad breath.

Jorken showed up again. He seemed exasperated by my lack of progress. “Follow me.” He started to pull away but did keep it down to a mortal pace. The crowd parted for him without seeing him. I zipped along in his wake, making much better time.

The effort only delayed the inevitable.

20

The huntress wasn’t thirty yards behind me when I fled the north side of the square. The voice in my head told me, Nog is inescapable. The black thing fluttered and flapped amidst the hounds. It seemed bemused by my attempt to get away.

I ducked around a corner and into a narrow breezeway, readying my magic cord as I went. Jorken didn’t like that. He shook his head violently, snapped, “Don’t!”

I popped into my sack of invisibility anyway and kept moving through the breezeway. There wasn’t much light back there, but enough for me to see the huntress and her pets race past the breezeway. I chuckled. “There, Winghead.” But Jorken had taken a fast hike, last laugh choking him.

The bundle of black appeared, hesitated, drifted into the breezeway behind me. The horsewoman returned. Her four-legged pals climbed over one another, trying to sniff out a trail that wasn’t there. But everybody trusted Nog’s nose. Or ears. Or whatever.

I kept humping that sack but never got out the other end of the breezeway. I was trying to slide into the cavity at someone’s back door, without making a racket, when Nog caught up. I heard a slithering snakes sort of sound, like reptilian scales running over scales. Something like black worms, nightcrawler size, began oozing into the sack through the little hole left by the knot when I had closed up. The voice in my head reminded me, Nog is inescapable.

Old Nog knew his limitations.

Old Nog smelled pretty damned bad. I didn’t get a chance to offer him any man-to-man advice on personal hygiene. Paralysis overtook me. I felt like a stroke victim. I was fully aware, but I couldn’t do anything. Nog slipped back out the hole, content to leave me in the sack. I saw nothing that looked like hands or arms, but he took hold anyhow and dragged me back into the street, to the huntress. She leaned down, felt around, grabbed hold of my arm, hoisted me like I was a doll. She flipped me down across the shoulders of her mount. She let out an earsplitting shriek of triumph, hauled back on her reins. Her unicorn reared, pounded the air with huge hooves, then we were off at a gallop, hounds larking around the great white beast’s pounding hooves, Nog the Inescapable floating alongside. Owls passed overhead, still fleeing the crows but finding a moment to send down hoots of congratulations. The huntress laid a silver-tipped arrow across her dark bow—weapon and shaft both just materialized in her hands. She sped the arrow. A monster crow became an explosion of black feathers. The missile flew on through, took a big turn, came back home. Mama snatched it out of the air, on the fly.

The crows got the idea. But they didn’t back off entirely. Whither the owls flew they followed, waiting to flash in and rip a few more feathers off heavy wings. The owls were looking pretty ragged.

Not that I got a real good look, sprawled in that undignified position. But it was a long ride, out of the city completely, into the region of wealthy estates south of town. I don’t like it out there. Every time I go I get into big trouble. This time didn’t look like it would be any exception. I was in trouble before I got there.

I wondered why nobody remarked on me floating through the streets.

Along the way we accumulated the rest of the Shayir crew, some of whom had real trouble keeping up—especially that wide, stubby guy. None of his pals seemed inclined to make any allowances. Sweethearts, the gods.

21

The place was huge and well hidden by trees and a stone wall ten feet tall, a quarter mile before you got to the house itself. There were guards at the gate, in keeping with the spirit of the times, but the gate stood open and they didn’t notice our entrance. I realized that nobody saw me floating around because I was still inside that damned invisibility sack. All I had done was make their job easier for them.

It was dark when we reached the manor house. I couldn’t see much of it from my position. I wondered if I would recognize it in the daylight. I wondered if I wanted to. I wondered if the Dead Man had any idea where I was or what was happening to me. I wondered why I was doing so much wondering lately.

The huntress dismounted, tossed her reins to a lesser deity of some sort who looked like a pudgy kid with the world’s foremost collection of golden curls. She dragged me down and tossed me onto her shoulder. Into the house we went. The pudgy kid flew away on impossibly small wings, leading the unicorn.

I hit the floor on a bearskin rug in front of a merrily crackling fireplace at one end of a room they could have cleared of furniture to use as a ball field on rainy days. I lay there looking up at my captor, who was as beautiful as any woman I’d ever seen. But there wasn’t an ounce of warmth in her. Cold as ebony. No sensuality whatsoever. I was willing to bet a mark she fell into the virgin huntress subcategory.

Nog crackled. The owl girls passed near the fire, as lovely as ever but sadly tattered. Hardly a thread remained of their wispy apparel. In better times I would have applauded the view.

The dogs, the stubby guy, the giant, all stood around staring at the bearskin. I didn’t think they were trying to bring Bruno back to life.

I spied other faces great and small, humanoid and otherwise, all with a definite mythological caste. Shadows played over the walls. The faun guy began consoling the owl girls. A pleasant, avuncular sort of voice said, “Might I suggest, Mr. Garrett, that as an initial gesture you come forth from that pocket clipped out of reality?”

I wiggled and rolled and looked at a guy who was sitting in a big chair, facing the fire. He had his hands extended to the flames as though he had a circulation problem. He did look enough like Imar to be his brother. Maybe Imar’s smarter twin brother, since he could articulate a civilized sentence.

Straining and groaning—I do not recommend horses in any form as transportation—I wobbled to my feet and fumbled with my cord till I was able to step out into the room with my hosts. None of them seemed interested in the cord. I made it disappear, hoping nobody would have second thoughts.

But why should they care? They had Nog, god of litter piles.

“I apologize for the less than genteel means by which you were brought here, Mr. Garrett. You have made it difficult to contact you.”

I stared for maybe fifteen seconds. Then I said, “I guess you’re not one of them.”

“One of what?” Puzzled.

I waved an inclusive hand. “The Shayir pantheon.”

He frowned.

“I’ve never heard of a god who has manners, let alone one who treats mortals with respect.”

Shadow touched his face. It wasn’t one of the shadows that infested the place, it was a shadow from within, a shadow of anger. “Would you prefer to be treated the way you expect?”

I am, I thought. “Actually, I’d rather not be treated at all. I ignore you, you ignore me, we’re no problem to one another.”

“But you are a problem. Of the worst sort. You threaten our existence. You cannot possibly expect us to overlook that.”

I swallowed about three times. The guy in the chair projected a furious temper, restrained only with great effort. I must have some power in the situation, though I couldn’t catch a whiff. “How am I a threat?”

“You have been enlisted by the Godoroth to find the Temple Key. That simple name doesn’t tell you that the group who fails to take possession of it will perish.”

“I think you got the wrong guy. I don’t know anything about any Temple Key.”

A whispering filled the air. Ice formed on my tailbone and crawled northward.

“Curious, Mr. Garrett. Torbit says you are only partially lying. But.” He rambled through an eyewitness review of my visit with the Godoroth. Maybe he was Imar in a good mood.

I searched the crowd, trying to get a good picture of faces. The Dead Man would want every detail—if ever we met again.

I said, “You got all the details, then you know I didn’t agree to do anything. I just slid on out of there.”

“There was an implication. You did not refuse.”

“Won’t stand up in court. Duress and coercion.” Which got me a blank look. Duress and coercion? Wasn’t that what being a god was all about? You could make people do what you wanted? Weren’t mortals toys?

He took it his own way. “Granted, you did not swear allegiance to the Godoroth. That is good. But why, then, were you on the Street of the Gods asking questions? Why were you visiting temples?”

“I was pretty sure it was a con of some kind. Those Godoroth characters didn’t convince me that they were real gods. They just told me that they were. They hadn’t shown me anything a clever conjurer couldn’t manage.” If you overlooked my magic rope. “I figured somebody wanted to set me up.”

My audience stirred. Most probably didn’t understand me. The guy in the chair had to mull it over before he got it. Give him that. He could step out of his own viewpoint. Not that he credited the mortal viewpoint with much value.

That chill whisper filled the air momentarily.

“It appears that, once again, you are telling most of the truth. Very well. I believe you understand the situation. Foreign gods have come to TunFaire. They have been awarded a place on the Street of the Gods. This means great inconvenience and dislocation for many gods, but for us and the Godoroth it means one group or the other has to go. For my part, I do not care to fall into oblivion.”

“Me neither.”

“You still believe you are being hoodwinked?”

“It’s starting to look like the real thing.”

“I want that key, Mr. Garrett.”

“I’ll say a prayer for you.”

Teensy thunderbolts crackled at his temples. Maybe it was something I said. He regained control. “You fled from my friends. If you are not in the service of the Godoroth, why run?”

“Give them an eye, chief. Most of them look like nightmares come true.”

More teensy thunderbolts flickered. I wasn’t doing too good here. I looked around. Things moving in and out of the light might have lurked under my bed when I was a kid. This was a much bigger crowd than the Godoroth. And not real friendly. Bad cess to the infidel, I guess.

“Where will you look for the key?”

“I’m not interested in any key. I just don’t want to be between gangs of divine sociopaths who have no interest whatsoever in my welfare.”

Crackly whisper in the air. Stir in the crowd, which seemed larger every time I checked. They were not all nightmares, either. This pantheon was well supplied with attractive goddesses, not one of whom had trouble with her hair and all of whom had normal teeth and the usual complement of limbs.

I didn’t need the whispers translated. Torbit the Strayer—whatever he, she, or it was—had reported the truth of my lack of interest. No grail quest for me. Forget that Temple Key. Garrett has no desire to save any holy bacon. I said, “I have friends in the beer business who do care and who do need my help. I’d rather be solving their problems.”

“There is little time, Mr. Garrett. We need a mortal to rescue us. Our remaining worshippers are few and of little value because of their age. Belief is not a requirement. Free will is. I see no more likely candidate than yourself. You work for hire. We have resources beyond your imagining.”

Yeah. Everything but loving followers eager to bail your asses out.

22

I’m sure I didn’t say that out loud. Must have been my body language. Dumb, to be twitching and aggravating the gods like that.

The head guy growled, “Put him into the lockup room. Some time with his thoughts should help him develop a new perspective.”

I liked my old one fine, but several unpleasant fellows disagreed. I had seen them on their day jobs as gargoyles. And not only did they have heads like rocks, they had muscles of stone as well. We took a vote. The majority elected to go along with Lang’s plan for an attitude adjustment. They lugged me through the house, up various flights of stairs, past a scattering of antique humans who had no trouble seeing us and who kowtowed to anything that moved. My companions chucked me into a large closet containing one ragged stolen army blanket (I knew it was stolen; otherwise it would still be in the army), one feeble fat candle, and two quart jars, one full and one empty. I presumed I was to be the middleman between jars.

The door closed. I gathered I was supposed to ruminate and quickly conclude that signing on with the Shayir was preferable to the alternatives. At the moment it looked like that could be true. I might have gone with that option had I not become distracted.

The dust hadn’t settled when the door popped open and the owl girls invited themselves in. They hadn’t bothered finding fresh clothing. They had mischief in their golden eyes, and “Uh-oh!” was all I got to say before they piled onto me.

They weren’t great conversationalists. In fact, I didn’t get anything out of them but giggles. I did my best to remain stern and fatherly and aloof, but they just took that as a challenge. I am nothing if not determined in my pursuit of information, so I continued to ask questions while I endured the inevitable.

After a while I began to fear the interrogation would never end. Those two only looked like girls.

Then they were gone and I was collapsing into exhausted sleep while trying to figure out what that had been all about. They hadn’t tried to worm anything out of me or to get me to promise a thing. They were very direct, very focused, and very demanding.

The door opened. The woman who had gotten me into this mess stepped inside. She was in her redhead phase, and a very desirable redhead she was. She sniffed. “I see Lila and Dimna have been here.” Her observation was as neutral as a remark about the weather.

“I don’t know what they wanted .. .”

“What they wanted is what they got. They are direct and simple.”

“Direct, anyway.”

“Simple.” She tapped her temple. “You find this form attractive?”

“I’ll howl at the moon.” Though she made no effort, she exuded sensuality. “But that won’t get you anything.”

“You’re sated.”

“Got nothing to do with it. I’m being pushed and bullied. I don’t take to that much. I get stubborn.”

“You have to understand something. If the Shayir don’t get what they want, neither do you.”

“And the Godoroth will think the same, so I can’t win. But I can stay stubborn and take everybody with me.” Damn. I didn’t like the sound of the slop gushing out of my yap. I don’t know if I believed it. I hoped that Torbit thing wasn’t listening.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“To be left alone.”

“That isn’t going to happen. And you know it. A sensible man would cut himself a deal.”

“I’ve already referred to the fatal flaw that renders that idea specious. Based on the record, it’s only reasonable to assume that you all will fail to keep your half of any deal. Promise the fool mortal all the gold and girls he can handle, tell him he gets to be ruler of the world and several provinces in hell as soon as he delivers this nifty key that will save some divine butts.” Speaking of divinity of the foundation, she knew the nature of perfection. “When we’re done we’ll turn his mortal ass into a catfish or something.”

“You’re certainly a cynic.”

“I didn’t create myself.”

She appeared thoughtful. “You may have touched on a real problem. I’ll think about it.” She looked straight at me, radiating that heat but not extending any invite.

“What?”

“You’re a true curiosity. I’ve met believers, unbelievers, fanatics, skeptics, and heretics, but I don’t think I’ve ever met a man who plain just didn’t care.” She did not, however, seem displeased by my indifference.

“I do care. I care a whole bunch about being left alone.”

“Only the dead are left alone, Garrett.”

“And even that depends on which gods they chose while they were alive.”

“Perhaps, stubborn man.” She left me with an enigmatic smile and a philosophical conundrum. She seemed content with my attitude.

TunFaire has innumerable clots of gods. Each bunch anchors a different belief system. Some of those are as crazy as pickled cats. If competing groups of gods, like the Godoroth and the Shayir, actually revealed themselves to mortals and confirmed not only their own existence but also that of their enemies, by implication, the existence of all the rest of the gods would be validated. In my skewed view it further implied that any given value or belief system must be just as true as any other.

Maybe I should start my own Church of the Divine Chaos. Everything is true and nothing is true.

I had no trouble with the idea that all the gods might be real. I’d always liked the notion that gods will exist as long as there is someone who believes they exist. The solidity of my intuition was now at the root of my difficulties. What troubled me was the possibility that the dogmas surrounding various really wacko religions might bear equal validity while there were true believers. If the general population reached that conclusion, there would be a big winnowing fast. Some belief packages just look a whole lot better than others. I would much rather kick off and fall into a paradise stocked with wild women and free beer than just become part of a ball of light or shadow, or become some dark spirit that necromancers would summon, or be gone to eternal torment, or, as had always been my personal suspicion, be just plain dead.

Deserved some thought.

23

I didn’t get time. I had too much on my mind. And I kept getting interrupted by one god person after another, each with the same mission: convince Brother Garrett to scare up that precious key. I had several truly intriguing offers from a couple of goddesses who looked like I had made them up. Maybe I did, come to think. One side of me wished I had a really remote deadline so I could take advantage of all these wonderful offers.

I dozed off at last, started sighing my way through a marvelous dream wherein all these randy goddesses decided I should go in with them on starting a new paradise. We would forget all those stuffy, weird shadow lurkers and hammer pounders and generally unfun, gloomy-gus guy gods. Then the bane of my existence raised its ugly head once again.

Somebody tapped on my cell door.

Something buzzed like the world’s biggest bumblebee. Voices clashed in whispers. The buzzard-size bee went away.

Somebody tapped on the door again.

I did not respond, probably because I was so amazed that anyone here would have the courtesy not to walk right in. I decided to play possum. I cracked an eyelid and waited.

The door opened.

This one was a girl. Surprise, surprise.

At first watery glimpse she seemed chunky and plain, and at second glimpse she seemed vaguely familiar. She had the glow of a peasant girl lucky enough to have enjoyed good health, with a body designed for serious work and frequent childbearing. As lesser gods went, she might be some sort of spring lamb or crop planting specialist.

She poked my shoulder. She was between me and the candle. Nothing insubstantial about her. My earlier visitors, however determined or enthusiastic, had not been entirely impervious to the passage of light.

I opened my eyes completely, startling the girl. I frowned. I did know her . . . Ah. She looked like a young version of Imara, Imar’s wife. But the head god here looked like Imar, too. Maybe Lang had a kid. No! Hell. She was the girl from Brookside Park.

“What?” I asked.

She didn’t seem to have in mind using woman’s oldest tool of persuasion.

“Hush. I’m here to help.”

“Funny. You don’t look like any royal functionary I ever met.” I touched her. She flinched. Earlier visitors had felt just as solid but had seemed awfully warm. This one was a normal temperature and lacked the absolute self-confidence the others had shown. “You’re mortal.” Clever me. Now I was sure she was the girl I had seen in the park. The pixies had seen her, too.

“Half mortal. Come on! Hurry!” An angry buzz waxed and waned in the corridor outside. “Before they realize there’s something happening outside their set pattern.”

I debated it for a long time, six or seven seconds. “Lead on.” I couldn’t see her getting me into the hot sauce any deeper, whatever her scheme.

Sometimes you just got to roll the bones.

“Who are you? How come you’ve been following me? Why are you doing this?”

“Hush. We can talk after we get out of here.”

“There’s an idea I can get behind.” And right in front of me was a behind I could get behind. She wore the peasant skirt again, whitish linen under a pale blue apron. I liked what I could see.

This mess had its aesthetic up side. I could not recall ever having run into so many gorgeous females in such a short time.

So some were a little strange. We all have our moments of weird, and life is a series of trade-offs anyway.

Blonde braids trailed down the girl’s back. “Wholesome” was the word that came to mind. Generally, some wholesome is the last thing most guys find interesting. But . . . 

She beckoned. I rose to follow. She opened the door a crack, beckoned again. I caught a bit of that buzzing racket again. It had an angry edge. Or perhaps it was impatience.

I don’t think the Shayir ever posted a guard. I guess when you have a Nog on staff you don’t much worry about prisoner escapes. Or maybe it was just divine hubris.

I wondered how my new pal planned to cope with the owl girls and Nog and his girlfriend with the dogs and weapons and no sense of humor.

“Come on!” She was intense but would not raise her voice above a whisper. Which was a good plan, probably.

She was flesh for sure. The floorboards creaked under her, ever so softly. They groaned under me. My earlier visitors had not made the house speak.

“This way, Mr. Garrett.”

Her chosen route was not the one the Shayir had used when escorting me to my spacious new apartment. It was not the route I would have chosen to make my getaway. It led down a narrow hallway only to a small, open window. A chill breeze stirred the thin, dirty white cotton curtains there. Outside, an almost full moon slopped light all over and made the whole manor look like a haunted graveyard. Maybe it was. How were we going to deal with that?

There was a whole lot of buzzing going on out there, suddenly. Somebody said, “Come on, babe, getcher buns moving.” Outside. Stories and stories up.

The girl went right out the window, indifferent to the fact that she was not dressed to play monkey on the wall. I stuck my head outside—and discovered that the big darling was not going downward. Gulp! What the? . . . Where was the rope? There wasn’t any rope. I had expected a rope from the moment I’d realized her plan included us climbing out that silly little window.

Buzz overhead. I looked up in time to glimpse just a hint of movement vanishing behind the edge of the roof.

Meantime, the girl had gotten herself onto a ledge that was not much wider than my palm. She was sidestepping industriously, headed I couldn’t tell where.

I then noted that the ledge was not a ledge as such. It was the top side of some kind of decorative gingerbread I could not make out because I wasn’t out there in the moonlight. I drew a deep breath, meaning to tell the young lady that I preferred my adventures at low altitudes with solid footing. Somebody behind me spoke up first. “Here, now! You! Who are you? What are you doing there?”

The speaker was a real live human old man, possibly of the butler calling. He wore only nightclothes but was armed with one truly wicked-looking meat cleaver. A door stood ajar behind him. Feeble light leaked into the hallway. If he had pests in his room the way I’d had them in mine that might explain why he slept with kitchen utensils.

The old man didn’t look like he was interested in conversation. He began slicing the air. I considered using my magical cord to climb down. But there was no time to stretch it. Nor did I see any handy place to tie it off.

Why not just jump? Falling would be less unpleasant than an encounter with a slab of sharp steel. The ground wasn’t more than a mile down.

That bumblebee buzz whirred off the roof and dropped down behind me. “Why you want to waste your time on this candyass pug, sweetheart?” I caught a strong whiff of weed smoke.

I looked back. Floating behind me was a pudgy baby with a thousand-year-old midget’s head. The critter wore what looked like a diaper but was actually a loincloth. “What you gawking at, Jake?” it snapped. And, “Get your lard ass moving.” He yelled upward, “Hey, babe, this one’s a fourteen-karat dud.”

The critter carried a teeny little bow and a quiver of little arrows and had the world’s biggest weed banger drooping from the corner of his mouth, smouldering. Here was the source of the buzz. And of the weed stink.

I managed to stand myself up on that ledge. A dud, huh? Look here. Sometimes a military education is useful in civilian life. Watch me now.

The old man leaned out the window and took a swipe at me. Rusty iron dealt the air a deep, bitter wound entirely too close to my nose. For a moment it looked like pappy was going to come outside after me.

The buzz changed pitch. I glanced back but kept my feet moving. The little guy doing the floating and cussing slapped a little arrow across his little bow and plinked the old man in the back of his meat-chopping hand. “Get moving, ya drooling moron!” he growled at me. “If you’d hauled your ass from the start they’d never have seen me.”

“I wouldn’t have missed you.”

Sometimes it’s wonderful to be young and dumb. A stunt like this would not have bothered me ten years ago.

About twenty feet from the window a bit of rope hung over the edge of the roof, which at that point descended to within eight feet of our footing. However, the roof did overhang us by several feet. Young and dumb, my new friend just leaped, grabbed the rope, clambered right up, skirt flying. Although he was busy cursing his wound, the old man caught that action. His eyes bugged more than mine did.

As the girl’s feet vanished, the flying critter soared up after her with the same sort of ponderous grace you see in large flying insects, the sort of stately defiance of gravity of a thing that don’t look like it ought to get off the ground at all. He filed various verbal complaints as he went. What a team the girl and I would make, her with her chattering whatisit and me with the Goddamn Parrot.

I shut my eyes, took a deep breath, considered the racket the old man was raising now, opened my eyes, offered the old boy a salute, took the plunge.

That sort of thing was all very well when I was nineteen and only one of a bunch of lunatics who tried to outdo one another in the face of an implacable enemy and almost certain premature death, but I was thirty now. I had a reasonably ordered and comfortable life. Well, sort of. Why the hell couldn’t I remember the moments like this when Old Man Weider made one of his pitches aimed at getting me to work the brewery full time?

I grabbed the rope, found arm strength I had feared was not there anymore, scrambled toward the roof. No longer did I possess the liquid grace of youth, but I did manage to get the job done.

“Can ya believe it, toots? The wuss actually dragged his lead ass up here.”

“Hurry!” The girl beckoned from the top of a slope of slate. “The alarm is spreading.”

Wouldn’t you know. I hurried. After bellying up twenty feet of steep and treacherously dew-slick slate, I dragged myself onto the flat part of the roof, which was large enough for a battalion’s drill ground. You could farm there if you wanted to haul the soil up first. I got to my feet. The girl beckoned anxiously. Beckoning had to be her top skill. I got the notion this was going slower than she’d planned.

The flying baby with the hallucinogenic stogie watched sourly from the back of a horse big enough to haul ogre knights around. The little guy had wings sprouting out of his shoulder blades. They looked just about big enough to lug a pigeon around. I guess he had to work hard when he flew.

There were two horses. “Oh no,” I said. “No. I’ve done all the riding I want for today.” Me and horses never get along. My ribs informed me that Black Mona’s mount had made every effort to ensure that my immediate future was one filled with misery. And that thing was only related to horses. Did I really want to escape badly enough to put myself at the mercy of these monsters?

“Look at this clown, babe. He don’t . . . ”

“Please stop horsing around, Mr. Garrett.” The girl was exasperated.

“You don’t understand. They have you fooled.”

The house shuddered underfoot. Somebody big had begun to stir downstairs.

“See ya later, Sweet Buns.” The little thing’s wings turned into a blur. He buzzed off into the night.

I started climbing the one horse that didn’t already have a blonde on top. It was a monster the color of old ivory, maybe even big enough to haul a troll into battle. For a while there I thought I would need ropes and pitons to make it to the top.

I completed the long climb. I swung my right leg over, was pleased to discover that the horse and I both had our heads facing the same direction. The extra altitude gave me a fine view of the roof.

The roof?

It occurred to me that I was about make my getaway on horseback from a rooftop. How far could I get? Was I the victim of an all-time practical joke? I do have friends who would consider this kind of situation a real howler.

I didn’t see anybody standing around snickering behind his dirty elven hand.

I didn’t have any friends who would, or for that matter could, spring for the cash a setup like this would cost.

The girl howled like a merry banshee. The child was happy. She kicked her horse in the ribs. It took off down the roof, chasing the baby whatisit. My horse was exactly as treacherous as I expect every equine to be. He took off, chasing his pal, without ever consulting me.

24

Those goddamned horses were stupider than I thought. They decided to race. The girl’s mount had shorter legs but a head start. When mine got up to speed it started to gain. All I could do was howl and hang on as my brave but terminally stupid steed pulled even. The girl grinned at me and waved.

We ran out of roof.

Neither horse blinked. Neither horse slowed down either, though they did angle away from one another at the last second.

The shapeshifting started well before the leap into space, but it was only as we ran out of roof that I noticed it. In scant seconds huge wings burst from my mount’s shoulders. Those broad shoulders narrowed dramatically. The beast’s whole back slimmed down until it was barely wider than a trim woman’s waist. All that bulk turned into wings. Those great wings hammered the air.

I hoped my whimpering wasn’t loud enough to hear.

We climbed toward the moon. The girl’s laughter tumbled back toward the manor like the tinkle of celestial windchimes. Possessed by the confidence of youth, she thought we were safely away. I was too busy not falling off to worry about owls and fluttering shadows and whatnot.

We went up and up till all TunFaire lay sprawled below us, more vast than ever I had imagined. To my right the great bend of the river shone like a silver scimitar in the moonlight. Lights blazed everywhere, for the city never sleeps. It boasts almost as many nocturnal inhabitants as daytime ones. It is several cities coexisting in the same place at the same time. It changes faces with the hours. Only in the hour before dawn is TunFaire ever more than coincidentally quiet.

I buried my hands in horse mane and hung on for dear life. I didn’t pray, though, if that was what they were trying to get me to do. Soon I became engrossed in that remarkable view of the city I call home. When I saw it from up there I didn’t wonder that half the world wanted to come here. From up there you could see only the magnificence. You had to get down on the ground to capture the stench and filth, to see the pain and poverty and cruelty, the irrational hatreds and the equally mad occasional senseless acts of charity. TunFaire was a beautiful woman. Only when you held her close and buried your face in her hair could you see the lice and scabs and fleas.

Not even in my most bizarre dreams had I ever drifted above everything like some great roc of darkness. I boggled while moonshine turned reservoirs into glimmering platters and drainage ditches into runes of silver. The earth seemed to wheel as the animals turned in flight. Amazing! My hands were cramped from holding on so tight, but I knew only the awe.

The girl shrilled, “Isn’t this wild, Mr. Garrett?”

“Absolutely.” I would tell her that Mr. Garrett was my grandfather after I got my feet back onto solid ground.

I looked back the way we had come. Trouble, if it was after us, was not yet close enough to pick out of the night. Trouble was sure to follow, though. That could be the tide of my autobiography. Trouble Follows Me. Though usually it ambushes me. I wondered if Nog was capable of tracing me through the air.

The girl let rip a wild yodel, swung one hand violently overhead. Lilac and violet sparks flew off her fingers. Her mount pointed his nose down. He plunged toward the earth.

Mine followed. “Oh, shit!” The bottom fell out.

Mine wanted to race again. TunFaire hurtled toward me, getting less enchanting by the second.

My stomach stayed back up there among the stars. Good thing I’d had no supper. We would be racing it to the ground, too.

The winged horses actually descended in a great circle, tilting slightly, moving their wings no more than buzzards on patrol. The streets and lights turned below. Soon I could make out individual structures, then individual people, none of whom looked up. People seldom do, and I take advantage of that fact occasionally, but seeing my world from the back of a horse cruising above the rooftops gave that concept new dimension.

My fright had ebbed. I was thinking again. I was proud of me. I wouldn’t have to change my underwear. I must be getting used to these bizarre adventures.

What were these winged horse things? What was the little flying thug in the diaper? He was around somewhere. I couldn’t see him, but his voice carried altogether too well. The only place I had seen their like was in old paintings of mythical events.

Unicorns, vampires, mammoths, fifty kinds of thunder lizards, werewolves, and countless other creatures often deemed mythical I had seen with my own eyes. Too often they had hammered bruises into my own flesh. But these flying horses and the bitty bowman constituted my first encounter widh a class of critters I thought of as artists’ conventions. Symbols. These guys, griffins, ostriches, cameleopards, cyclops. All of them supposedly as uncommon as lawyers driven only by a need to see justice done.

We dropped lower. The horses glided wingtip to wingtip. The little guy buzzed, but I could not spot him. We seemed to be headed back into the heart of TunFaire, down toward Brookside Park.

I still had not gotten a name out of my demigoddess benefactor, nor did I have a ghost of a notion of her true motive for helping me. She offered up another amazing yodel. I began to fiddle with my amazing cord. We could amaze one another. “Hey, girl! Who are you? You got a name or not?” There was a lot of wind noise in my ears, not to mention the powerful hum of the litde guy’s wings. I couldn’t spot him no matter how hard I looked.

Crystal laughter rang out off to my right. It looked like the horses were thinking about landing. The girl was pulling ahead to go down first. “Call me Cat, Mr. Garrett. Bad Girl Cat.”

“I like bad girls.” I would have said more, but my throat tightened up. We were down so low the peaks of buildings widi pointy roofs were at eye level. My mount started using his wings to slow down, but still structures whipped past at a speed beyond my imagining. I could not believe anyone could travel so fast and still be able to breathe.

My mount reared back and presented the entire undersurface of its wings to the onrushing air. We slowed violently, shuddering, air roaring. The beast’s wings shrank. Its shoulders began to bulk up. Its speed dropped. Then it hit the ground galloping. And there was nothing upon its back. Or so I hoped the casual observer would conclude. The horse had to sense my weight.

I had strained my courage to its limits to get myself inside my sack of invisibility.

Actually, initially I pulled the noose up only to my armpits. I needed my arms free. Once the horse touched down and began slowing its run, it trotted in amongst some trees. It promptly lost two hundred pounds as I grabbed a sturdy branch. Oof! Rip the old arms out by the roots, why not?

I dropped to the ground, pulled the sack of invisibility over my head, moved along before my self-proclaimed rescuers had time to realize that I had disappeared.

Pixies laughed and yelled, “We saw what you did. We saw what you did.” But if you were not listening for them they just sounded like sparrows complaining about having been wakened in the middle of the night.

25

“Mr. Garrett? Where are you? Are you all right? Answer me if you can.”

I could but I didn’t. She could not be sure I hadn’t fallen during our landing. Damn! If I had kept my mouth shut, if I hadn’t asked her her name, she couldn’t have been sure I hadn’t fallen earlier, when she was having too much fun to concentrate.

The bumblebee whir of the runt’s wings came toward me, wordlessly putting death to my maunderings. He knew I hadn’t fallen. He was on patrol now, running a slow search pattern. The little rat couldn’t shut up. And everything he said was less than complimentary toward my favorite working stiff. Me.

To know me is to love me.

I headed for home full speed, encouraged by a racket behind me that suggested a welcoming party might have been waiting. Sounded like lots of folks were in a sudden bad mood, including a nation of pixies untimely rousted from their sleep. Over what sounded like a henhouse disturbed I heard Cat shout at one of her horses. She wanted to get airborne again.

The little winged guy buzzed up to within a few feet of me. He settled his plump rump onto the outstretched bronze palm of one of the few nonmilitary statues in the park. He had an arrow across his bow. His moonlighted expression said he meant to use it. “Know you’re around here somewhere, Slick. Know you’re close enough to hear. That was a nifty stunt, turning sideways to reality to give the kid the slip.” Weed smoke had begun to cloud up around his head. He ought to be too stoned to breathe. “But fun is fun, and I don’t think you’re gonna have much more if you don’t come in now. You don’t got no other friends.”

I figured the Godoroth crew had tried to reel me in, irked because I had been trafficking with the enemy, and now they were triple irked because I had done a fade. I considered taking advantage of my invisibility to get a closer look at them. But I was worn out. I just wanted to go home. Reason told me home was no safer than out here, but the animal within me wanted to believe otherwise, wanted to slide into its den and lick its wounds. I kept the sack of invisibility around me till I was sure the flying runt had gotten lost.

I caught his buzz again as I was about to leave the park. I stepped into deep shadow and froze. Thus I was out of sight and motionless when two huge owls flapped over moments later. Though they were talking owl talk, the girls were bickering virulently.

I chuckled. To myself, of course.

Let them go butt heads with the Godoroth.

Knowing the Shayir were around put some extra hustle into my step. Good thing, too. Wasn’t long before I began to feel a chill. It grew. I found another deep shadow and shrank down into it. I was crouched there when Abyss the Coachman floated across my backtrail like a black, wind-tossed specter. Looked like he had been sent to patrol the routes from the park to my home.

Had that been set up ahead? Had they expected an escape attempt?

You get paranoid.

I’d always thought gods were big on omniscience and such. Maybe as your followers become fewer you have less ability to draw on the power leaking over from the old country. Certainly if either bunch had any way of knowing things for themselves they would have no need for me. And I wouldn’t be running around loose.

Paranoia. I had a bad feeling mat when the smoke cleared and the earth stopped rocking and the dust settled, neither bunch would have much use for a mortal pug who had gotten his nose into too many divine secrets.

Something to keep in mind.

I heard a rustling. It came from the south. It grew louder quickly. Nog? No. Not Nog the Malodorous. Marvellous. I crouched in another shadow. Something passed overhead like a flight of bats but was not bats. More like fluttering paper shadows in a big hurry, moving with great purpose, hunting. Might that be the thing called Quilraq the Shadow? I wasn’t inclined to hang around and find out.

I stuck to alleys and breezeways that would not have been graced by my presence at any other time. I even crossed the Bustee, the deadliest slum in town, where nine of any ten inhabitants would have cut my throat for the shoes I was wearing and the gods themselves would walk in peril. Twice I turned to Maggie’s wonderful cord to fend off overeager shoppers. That was one handy tool, but I was getting reluctant to use it. It could be no coincidence that every time I did one of the Godoroth turned up soon afterward.

No exception in the Bustee, either. Each time it was one of the ugly guys that came, too, like the Godoroth knew those mean streets well enough to send only their meanest and most expendable. The streets emptied quickly after that, even though the locals could not see what was scaring the bean sprouts out of them.

I tried to see the bright side. The Shayir were not turning up at the same time. They were, apparently, only running random patrols in areas that interested their opponents.

The ugly guys were not Nog. Nor were they especially powerful other than in the scary department. I ducked and dodged them with little difficulty. On the other hand, I suspected everyone now had a solid idea of where I was headed. Whole platoons of divine beasties might be setting up camp near my house.

Owls and paper shadows, flying horses and flying babies who smoked weed crisscrossed the night, possibly taking their bearings from Godoroth on the ground. It was a wonder they didn’t collide.

I changed course the minute I cleared the Bustee, skirting its eastern edge as I headed north. I mean, what would Mrs. Cardonlos say if I brought this all home and the gods themselves started duking it out in Macunado Street?

It seemed a better strategy would be to go where the gods wouldn’t look, then stay put till their deadline passed. Put them all out of business.

Faces and figures flickered through my memory. Such a pity I couldn’t pick and choose. There were some divine ladies amongst those gods, and the world might become a lesser place for their absence.

26

I drifted more than a mile north and east of my original course. I attracted no attention but never made up my mind where to go, either. Then I changed my mind.

This was like being back in the Corps. The people in charge didn’t know what they were doing. I cussed the guy giving me orders. I told me to shut up and do what I was told.

I’d decided that I did have to go home. I needed to see the Dead Man. He needed to know what had become of me. Maybe he could find a thread of sense in this madness. There was more going on than I had been told, and I still had only a glimmering of the rules of the game I was being forced to play.

Surely both god gangs had my place staked out. I needed to draw them away. So give them a sniff of the false trail, Garrett.

Out came that cord. I turned it into a poking stick and swished it around, relaxed it and trotted a third of a mile northeast, toward TunFaire’s northernmost gate, then I played with the rope in an alley infested with snoring drunks. I hurried on, used the cord one last time on the street that leads directly to the gate.

TunFaire’s gates all stand open all the time. Only once had they closed, when some thunder lizards from the north had been ravaging the countryside. A guy with the need could make a high-speed exit anytime of the day or night. I suspected the gates would be of particular interest to the new secret police.

The street to and from the northeastern gate is always busy. I tied my rope around my waist and plunged into traffic headed south. I didn’t think the Godoroth and Shayir, busy tripping over one another, would become sure of where I wasn’t for a good while yet.

My plan worked like they write them up in a book. For a few minutes.

I was preoccupied. The texture of the night changed, and I failed to notice because there were no mad little gods weirding around me. The street grew quiet and tense and the crowds thinned out, but I caught on only after a howl arose ahead and I discovered the street blocked by a bunch of guys carrying angry red-and-black banners. They were armed with clubs and staves and were whipped along by drums and trumpets. They sang some really vicious racist song.

Startled, I stopped to take stock.

More human rights guys came from cross streets. They appeared to have a specific objective, attainment of which required the physical battery of everyone in their way, human or otherwise. It seemed that, for the purposes of the moment, anybody not actively marching with them was deemed to be against them.

People on the street fought back. The nonhumans went at it with great verve. The rightsists didn’t care if those folks were apolitical and there by accident. They were not human. That was guilt enough.

I saw banners from several organizations. The demonstration would be something unusual, then. These groups fought one another over subtle points of dogma more than they battled their declared enemies.

Up ahead, where the rightsists were thickest, the northbound side of the street dissolved into ferocious turmoil. The center of violence appeared to be a caravan intent on slipping out of town under cover of darkness.

Stones flew. Clubs flashed. People hollered. I ricocheted back and forth, banged around, finally came to rest in a pile of mixed casualties. The cobblestones exercised no favoritism toward anyone. I got back onto one knee, muttering curses on all their houses. My headache was back. How could I douse all the streetlamps? But they would keep fighting anyway.

A knot of nasty-looking rightsists drifted my way. Ever flexible, I dived down and liberated an armband from an unconscious guy who didn’t really need his right now. I put it on fast. Then I did what I have been doing so well lately, which was act like I’d just had my brains scrambled and couldn’t quite get myself put back together. “Garrett? Hey, Wrecker, is that you?”

“I think so.” I knew that voice but couldn’t place it. It was a voice from long ago and far away. I faked an effort to get up that failed and left me down on my face.

Somebody else asked, “You know this guy?”

“Yeah. He was in my outfit. In the islands. He was our wreck.”

I got it. “Pappy?” That was the voice. Pappy Toomey, also known as Tooms. The old man of the outfit at twenty-seven, a lifer, like a father to the rest of us, like a sergeant without official authority. Pappy never got out but never wanted to advance either.

“Yeah, Garrett. Help me get him up, Whisker.” Hands hoisted me. “Who you with, Garrett?”

I didn’t know who he was with, so I wobbled a hand vaguely, muttered vaguely, “Them.”

A piece of brick whizzed by. They ducked, nearly dropping me. “What’s wrong?” Pappy asked me.

“Somebody whacked me with a log. Everything keeps turning around. My knees won’t work.”

“Lookit here, Whisker. Already got his head sewed up once today. Right in the thick of the Struggle, eh, Wrecker?”

I tried for a grin. “Hey, Pappy. Butter and bullshit to you, too. How’s it going? I thought you was dead.”

“I heard that rumor, too, Garrett. It’s almost all horse puckey. You gonna make the big rally?”

“I’m still walking,” I said, knowing that was the answer Pappy wanted. “I got to roll, Tooms, catch up with my crew. Nice meeting you, Whisker.” I took a couple of steps and glommed onto a lamp post that already supported two addled lovers against the seductions of gravity. Why does my luck run this way? On the lam from my personal armageddon and I stumble right into a guy I haven’t seen in a decade and he recognizes me and throws my name out where anybody with an ear can catch it.

What next?

Aunt Boo was right. It’s always something.

Nothing dropped out of the night or poured out of an alleyway. I saw no sign that anybody but Pappy and his pals had any interest in me. I held a conference. My feet agreed to stay under the rest of me. We all got going. My head hurt bad. I cursed softly and steadily, a vision of my own bed the carrot that kept me moving.

And still nothing plopped out of the night or boiled forth from the sewers while I was still in a part of town where they have those.

27

I was bone-tired. I wasn’t smart, but I was lucky. It was a quiet night. Everybody with a taste for trouble had gone to the riots. My own brush with those, I learned later, was little more than a glance off the fringes of a minor skirmish far from the center of conflict, where matters grew serious. The push and shove and shouting escalated into massacres when real weapons came out. Nonhuman shops got plundered by the hundred. Refugees and squatters got tormented and beaten too often to number.

The scary thing was, the men responsible were out of control now but were all trained soldiers and combat veterans. If they reclaimed military discipline and organization, TunFaire could witness some real bloodshed.

I wondered what Relway and the secret police were doing to stem the tide. Maybe nothing. Serious bloodshed might serve Relway’s personal agenda.

Bad as I wanted to get home to my bed, I entered my neighborhood with care. The temptation to make myself invisible was almost overpowering. Instead, I took my mind back in time, again became the company wreck. “Wreck” was what the regular grunts called us recon types when we were stuck with an infantry outfit. Wrecks got lots of training in sneakery and the mental skills important to the recon mission. I retained the physical skills, but getting to that place in my mind where there was no uncertainty, no nervousness, no worry, no lack of self-discipline, eluded me. That was something you had to work on every day. I had been slacking for years. I felt all the things your master wreck is supposed to set aside.

But I was quiet. I was one with night and shadow, never mind that big moon up there. I was fluidity itself, illusion flowing over the faces of walls in silence of stone. I passed sober but sleeping ratmen and they stirred not a whisker as I ghosted through the alleyways they called home.

I jumped about nine feet high when a sudden weight plopped onto my shoulder, grabbed hold like the cold, clawed hand of something risen from the grave. Every damned time I start telling me how great I am doing.

I returned to earth without screaming, having realized that the clawed hand was two bird feet. Attached to those feet was the ugliest duckling that ever lived. This one couldn’t even swim or honk like a swan.

It said, “Do not approach the house yet. There are watchers. They must be diverted. Do not move at all until I give you the word.” The voice did belong to the Goddamn Parrot, but there was only one horrible possible source for its dialogue.

I froze, the sheer horror, the terrible implications, leaving me completely blind to the fact that my venture northward, which had cost me such pain coming back south, had not broken the stakeout around my place. “No!” I whined, envisioning a future wherein there was no escape, no safe place. “Tell me it isn’t so.” He would be able to nag me anywhere.

“Awk! Garrett?”

“I understand and obey, O babbling feather duster.” He was doomed. He had to go. If he could be used to follow me around carping, his fate was sealed.

It was him or me or the nightmare. Him or me. Heh heh. Accidents happen, Morley. Terrible accidents. Every day.

“Garrett! Please respond.”

I was so involved in scoping out Mr. Big’s short future that I had forgotten to keep my eyes and ears open. But luck looked the other way. No evil happened. “I’m right here. Right under this stinking vulture.”

“Do not talk that way. The creature could have feelings, too. Hurry home. This diversion will not last long.”

“On my way, Old Bones.” I could sell him into slavery. Plenty of big-time wizards wouldn’t mind having a dead Loghyr on staff. Well, a tame one anyway. Maybe I could give him away. Anybody wanted him, they could just come by and haul him off. I was not going to endure having him looking over my shoulder and criticizing me all over town.

28

I sensed the Dead Man’s presence long before the house came in sight. He was wide awake and totally involved, which was a little disconcerting.

“Hurry!” the bird muttered. “Hurry!” Hurry! echoed inside my head.

I ran, still horrified by the possibility that there might be no escape from the Dead Man ever again.

My block of Macunado was filled with smoke. A few neighbors were out asking the night what the hell had happened. Seemed a waste if this was the Dead Man’s doing. Gods, even of No-Neck’s petty pewter stripe, were without doubt capable of seeing through smoke screens both physical and metaphorical. But I soon discovered that this smoke was full of specters flittering hither and yon, like the ghosts of childhood nightmares conjured for but an hour.

I scrambled up my front steps. My front door popped open just as a bumblebee hum grew in the darkness. I dived through. It popped shut behind me, hopefully before that banger-smoking runt caught a glimpse. For once Dean was on the job.

He was pale, frightened. I said, “Maybe you should have stayed another couple of days. You would’ve missed all this fun.”

He gulped and nodded, but said, “I will have your supper ready in a few minutes. Meantime, Himself insists on seeing you.”

Now didn’t that dovetail sweetly with my own master plan?

I let myself into Himself’s room, rehearsing some choice remarks. “We’re into some really deep shit, Old Bones, and it isn’t going to be good enough to just tread water.”

“I am aware of the peril . . . ”

“Can it with the talking bird, will you? Let’s do it the way we always have. No! Wait. Stay awake . . . ”

Sarcasm is inappropriate, Garrett. We will proceed as you wish.

“I figure you can see how my day went with one glance at the inside of my head. I hope yours was better.”

Indeed. I had a very instructional evening with your friend Linda Lee, once she gained the upper hand on her prejudices. That child has potential, Garrett. I approve.

Uh-oh. He never approves of any woman. “Don’t let her image fool you, either. She knows exactly what to do with all that potential.”

I fail to see any humor in your insinuation, Garrett. Linda Lee is that rarest of all mythical beings, a woman of reason and . . . 

I burst out laughing. “I don’t believe it. She got to you.” I chuckled some more, telling me I would have to look out for my librarian. If she could turn the Dead Man’s head she was dangerous. “Of course you don’t see any humor. You don’t have a sense of humor. Come on. What’s the word on these gods? They the real thing? How do I get out from under?”

The Word is Trouble. In your vernacular, trouble in a big way. From the sheer scope of events around you we have to conclude that this is not an elaborate confidence game.

“No shit.”

He failed to catch my sarcasm this time. Or he ignored it, which he will do.

Not even a government would go to the expense and trouble of staging something this difficult to manage.

“You’re kidding. Imagine that. No government willing to fool me?”

Not in this pinpoint fashion. The expense anti-militates.

“Not to mention that I’m completely unimportant in the mortal scheme. A little nil.”

Not to mention that no one on this earth has to work that hard to fool you. Some long legs, a bit of jiggle, some flouncing long hair, perhaps red for extra effect . . . 

Sigh. “Great, Chuckles. We’re really getting somewhere here, aren’t we? We are really getting diddled by gods?”

They believe they are gods. And almost certainly they are within the liberal definitions employed by your primitive ancestors.

“All right. Whatever, they’re bad. I’m a fly and I see the flyswatter coming. Do I get philosophical and suffer it? Or can I do something?”

There are several somethings available as options. Perhaps the most attractive is to lie low and do nothing at all while the situation runs its course. I would not be repelled by this option were it possible to sustain it. Your world and the Dream Quarter would be no poorer for the loss of these pantheons.

“The trouble is, they don’t plan to go quietly into that gentle night.”

Not at all. And since you have been given the opportunity to save them, any disaster is sure to come to roost here swiftly, whether or not they are able to discern your presence.

“They want a key, Chuckles. And I don’t have a clue where to look for one. Or what it would look like if I tripped over it. Did Linda Lee help us out there?”

With her invaluable aid—and I cannot overemphasize just how much the child impressed me—I reviewed the available literature both on these pantheons and on those mechanisms used to determine presence, place, and status in the Dream Quarter.

“Wonderful. Does all that wind mean you figured something out?”

Restrain yourself. You are not safe here, nor is time ours to squander.

I rolled my eyes and beat back the urge to head upstairs right now. I was more than ready to get intimate with my bed. “I’m not the one blowing like the wind.”

Based upon available information, supplemented by reason, I have concluded—albeit with a reluctance approaching despair—that you yourself are the anointed key. Additionally, it seems improbable that the interested parties have yet entertained that possibility.

“Say what?” I squeaked.

You are it, Garrett. They do not know yet. That has been your grand piece of luck to this point.

“No shit.” If he was right. He couldn’t be right. I didn’t want him to be right.

They would break my legs so I couldn’t run, then clap me in irons and toss me into a cage and rivet it shut, then surround that with magical spells.

I have no doubts whatsoever.

“Shit,” I said again. I was going through one of those vocabulary droughts that set in after a really bad shock. “Shit. It’s me? I’m the key? How the hell does anybody fit me into a lock?”

You have to begin from the fact that where religion is concerned, as is the case with magic, much of what you deal with is metaphor and symbol. In this instance metaphor and symbol have taken life.

That kind of babble usually sets me off. This time I was too tired and achy to squabble.

Dean brought a tray. I stared at a gigantic lamb chop, vegetables, cherry cobbler fit for the king and a mug of beer big enough to suit one of the divine thugs making my life miserable.

“Is there some metaphorical way to kick symbols in the ass so they leave you alone?”

Doubtful. They are gods—albeit as petty as they get. You are not. In all the histories of all the races of this world there have been only two methods proven efficacious in dealing with the gods. You must appease them or you must befuddle them.

“There you go stating the obvious again. Let’s back it up some. What makes me the key? How and when did I get hung with it?”

I cannot offer an informed answer. I have a theory, but it is too tenuous and unsettling at this point.

“Bullshit.” My buddy, my pal, who don’t like getting caught being wrong so won’t say anything till he is certain he is going to be right. “I’m not buying any of this premature . . . ”

Though time is indeed precious, your best option now is to rest. It should be possible to maintain the illusion of your absence for a time. Sleep. And, henceforth, please do not resort to any of the options offered by the cord given you by that Magodor creature.

“I done figured that one out for myself, Smiley.”

I suppose you have, at that. Sleep, Garrett.

My bed felt like a little slice of heaven, with whipped cream on top.

29

It was a night too short. Some thief of time ripped off the four best hours. Cruel wakeup arrived with a crueler sunup. Somehow, my curtains stood open. Sunbeams flailed around like whips in the hands of morons. I faced away, tried to den up like a groundhog under the covers, but there was no escape. There is no enemy so relentless as the sun.

I know I shut my door before I collapsed into bed. It stood open now, perhaps betraying the first feather-stroke of Dean’s vengeance campaign. My struggle against a return to the realm of the waking suffered savage reverses at the beak of the Goddamn Parrot, who was perched atop the open door and deft enough of wing to evade a flying shoe traveling at high speed.

This was the last straw. He was gone.

I was not likely to fail to remember who was operating him, either. The very bone-lazy bonehead who had helped so little with my recent cases, the deadbeat who would not wake up if you set a fire under his chair.

To hell with him. I packed my blanket tight around my ears.

Stubbornness gained me nothing. I stayed in bed, all right, but didn’t get any more sleep. I just lay there wishing. While the Goddamn Parrot preached sermons.

“Bird, your life expectancy is minutes. You don’t shut up you’re going to be creamed chipped squab on toast.” Dean would put together a championship gourmet experiment.

The bird got the message. His inclination toward self-preservation overrode the Dead Man’s low, practical joke kind of humor. For the moment. That was one stupid bird.

All right. I could tuck that triumph in my pocket. So how come I couldn’t get back to sleep? How come some sadistically self-abusive part of me kept insisting it was time to get up and get at it?

“Get at what?” I muttered. I dropped my feet into the same abyss as yesterday. “There ain’t nothing, but nothing, out there that can’t get through the day without me.”

Good morning, Garrett. Please exercise emotional caution today. The house is being observed. I believe I have your presence adequately masked. To maintain the illusion I must have you remain placid. Please refrain from these unproductive outbursts.

“Then don’t provoke me,” I grumbled. I staggered around and fell into some clothes I found lying around, mostly what I had shucked in the middle of the night. They were not completely ripe. They would do.

I took my life in my hands, peeked out my window. “Damn!”

Garrett! Calmly, please.

“It’s bright out there.” Whatever happened to all those gloomy, overcast days we’d been having? The world seemed to be getting warmer.

Stay away from the window. Someone might see the curtain move and reason that you are here after all—particularly since the movement came at your window.

It was going to be one of those days, was it? Nags punctuated by nagging? I reconsidered my bed. It had been so nice in there, so toasty warm. My dreams had been of a paradise where the motives of all the beautiful women were blatant and straightforward and the “me key, you lock” symbolism was direct and obvious. There were beer taps everywhere, and you would gain five pounds a day on the food if you ate it in the waking world.

By jingo June, as Granny used to say—I did hear her say that once—I ought to get my buddies together so we could cook us up our own religion. Most of them believed in booze and bimbos, and some enlightened religions already considered that sort of stuff important enough to rate its own underling gods and goddesses. Star was one example. Maybe we could get Star to jump the Godoroth ship by offering her a better contract.

A diffuse wave of disgust emanated from downstairs. “You don’t like the way I think, quit poking around inside my head.”

I was not seeking adolescent fantasization. I was trying to reexamine your experiences of yesterday.

“You were playing voyeur because you can’t think that stuff up for yourself. The best you can come up with is bug parades and goofball political theories.”

I cannot deny what is self-evident. I am a creature of intelligence and intellect, disinclined toward obsession with pleasures of the flesh.

“You can’t deny what is self-evident, which is that you couldn’t do anything about it if you wanted, so you just sit there making sour remarks about those of us who still have a little fire in our blood.”

While we amused ourselves, I negotiated the stairway, an epic adventure any morning early. I trudged into the kitchen and drew a mug of tea from the pot. Dean was at the stove. He offered me a look of exasperation, like I had ruined his whole day by not staying in bed so he could experience the enjoyment of rousting me out. I tapped every reservoir of contrariness within me, put on my brightest Charlie Sunshine face, chirped, “Good morning, Dean. Did you sleep well?”

He glowered a deep black glower, sure I was putting him on. “Breakfast will be a while yet.”

I poured myself a refill. “Take your time. Me and the big guy got schemes to scheme and cons to crack.” I was sure that, immortal players or not, there were charades going on in this temple squabble. Overall, the Shayir probably were more straight with me, and one sex of them sure was friendly, but I was sure we didn’t have the full map in front of us yet. “Dean?”

“Sir?”

“Did the wedding go well? Was the trip worth it?” I could not recall having asked before,

“It all went quite well. Your gift was received with considerable pleasure. Rebecca expressed amazement that you even remembered her, let alone thought so well of her.”

“There was a time when neither one of you let me forget for a minute. That gift was a sigh of relief.” Back then Dean’s whole mission in life, it seemed, was to get me married to one of his numerous nieces.

A hint of a smirk pranced around the corners of the old boy’s mouth. He said, “It was an interesting journey. We even fell afoul of highwaymen on the return leg, gentlemen so inept they didn’t know what to do when they found out that everyone aboard the coach was stone-broke. I enjoyed myself a great deal, but it’s good to be back home.”

“Yeah. No place like.” Especially for me. “Sounds like somebody pounding on the door.”

Garrett. Please step into your office and close the door.

“Huh?”

Our visitors are Mr. Tharpe, Miss Winger, and an associate of Mr. Dotes’ known as Agonistes. They will leave shortly. I should like them to depart convinced that you are not on these premises.

That sounded like a reasonable idea, but who would want to admit it to Himself?

Who was this Agonistes? I didn’t know anybody by that name in Morley’s crew.

“Agonistes” is what you people call a street name.

“Oh. Silly me. I really thought somebody’s mother would hang a tag like that on him.”

Dean passed me, headed for the front door, wiping floury hands on a dishrag. I ducked into my office, which is a large, messy closet across the hall from the Dead Man’s spacious suite. I swung the door most of the way shut. I left it cracked both so I could hear what was said in the hall and so I could peek at the Dead Man’s visitors. “Dean, remember to keep an eye on Winger. She’ll try to kype something.”

“I always do, sir. All of your friends.”

He started fumbling with locks and latches and chains, taking away any chance I would have had to speak on behalf of my friends.

The man’s birth name was Claude-Ned Blodgett.

I didn’t know that name, either, but I could see why he would take up just about anything else. Who was going to be scared of a gangster named Claude-Ned Blodgett? Was he going to pop you with a farm implement?

Agonistes, though, had a kind of self-selected sound to it. Names picked up on the street don’t usually come that dramatic. Pretty often, they really sound plain stupid. Our great wizard lords on the Hill pick their own business names, and they always choose something like Raver Styx.

Winger started barking before Dean got the door all the way open. I hoped the Dead Man just had her doing legwork. She could complicate things real bad if she got in far enough to get ideas for some scheme.

30

“Garrett here?” Winger demanded.

“I fear not, Miss.”

“I’d swear I heard his voice.”

“Holy hooters!” the Goddamn Parrot squawked. “Look at them gazoombies!” He managed a creditable wolf whistle. Winger is blessed. Nobody will ever doubt that she is female, despite her six-foot stature.

“If Garrett wasn’t my best friend I’d throttle that critter,” Winger said.

I wanted to jump out and tell her not to hold back on my account, go for it, turn the little vulture into mock chicken soup.

Though he knew I would do no such thing, the Dead Man did brush me with a cautionary touch. Up front, the Goddamn Parrot continued to flatter Winger. Saucerhead’s rumbling laugh filled the hallway. “I think he’s in love, Winger. I bet you Garrett would let you take him home.” He knew.

“Shee-it.”

“Think of the advertising. That bird around wherever you went.”

“Double shee-it.”

I leaned in an effort to look through the narrow crack by the door hinges. I wanted to see this Agonistes character. I didn’t get much of a look, though he waited for Winger and Saucerhead to go into the Dead Man’s room first. He didn’t look like a thug. He looked like a lawyer, which is a whole different species of villain. But, then, Morley is trying to polish his image these days.

I listened carefully. I couldn’t catch a sound from the Dead Man’s room. Dean went back to the kitchen, prepared a tray with tea and muffins. My mouth watered. I was hungry. I resisted temptation. Those three did have to leave the house convinced I was still on the run. Dean wouldn’t be able to go out at all now. We would have to survive on whatever we had on hand. Unless Dean had managed some marketing, that would not be much. I had eaten out while the old boy was gone.

On his way back to the Dead Man’s room, Dean stepped in and quietly handed me tea and several hot muffins. He winked, crossed the hall. Before the Dead Man’s door shut I heard Winger carping about me being so cheap I wouldn’t serve a decent breakfast.

Winger is one of those people you love because they have style. Anyone else who did the things she does would have no friends. Winger does it and you just sort of sigh and chuckle and shake your head and say, “That’s Winger.”

That kind of person always irritates me—along with guys who never get dirty or rumpled—but I fall under their spell as easily as anybody.

I munched a muffin with one hand and felt the stitches in my scalp with the other. They were tender. Surprise, surprise. But when I didn’t touch them they itched. At least my hangover was long gone. I wished I could sneak into the kitchen for a brew. But there wasn’t a drop in the house.

Oh my. No beer. And I couldn’t go out. And Dean couldn’t go out. Even having Dean have Saucerhead bring in a keg wouldn’t work. Nobody out there would believe the keg was for Dean or the Dead Man.

That led to the really uncomfortable question. Were those god gangs likely to come play rough? Would they bust in here just to poke around?

“They’re gods, Garrett,” I reminded myself. “Maybe they aren’t as powerful and all-knowing as they want people to think and most people usually think gods are, but they’re still a long way up on us mortals.” I could not see them having much trouble figuring out where I was.

And that being the case, why shouldn’t I just cross the hall and hand Saucerhead a few marks and a nice fee for fetching me a keg?

Continue to assume you are the focus of a mighty confidence scheme, Garrett. It will help if you believe we are not powerless in this.

I jumped. For a moment after the touch opened, I expected it to be Nog is inescapable. I’m not sure why.

What was that all about? He did not expand upon his remark, which only indicated he was monitoring my thoughts, something he wasn’t supposed to do except in extreme circumstances.

Dean stepped in. “More tea?”

“If you can manage. What’s going on over there?”

“He has them collecting rumors so he can compare and collate them and test some theory about the true intentions of Glory Mooncalled.”

My expression scared Dean. He grabbed my mug and platter and scooted. I squeezed the edge of my desk so hard I ought to have crushed fingerprints into the wood.

I wanted to blow up in a shrieking rage. I wanted to stomp around the house breaking things. I wanted to use words my mother would have disowned me for even thinking. I wanted to grab a certain humongous sack of petrified camel snot and drag him into the street, where he could become snacks for homeless and otherwise dis-advantaged vermin. I couldn’t do any of that without giving myself away, so I sat there rocking back and forth and making weird, soft noises that could get me committed to the mental ward at the Bledsoe Imperial Charity Hospital.

I had a feeling Dean had just let slip the real con going on around here. My esteemed sidekick was using my concern about my own dire situation to gull me into thinking I was getting something for my money when it was really him getting something else.

Child and Loghyr, living and dead, I have been in this world more than a dozen centuries, Garrett. Never have I encountered a creature as cynical and selfish and penurious as you. There are great changes stirring. True marvels and wonders are transforming today into history out there. And you insist we all focus completely on a squabble that may work itself out just fine without you or me.

I didn’t shriek. I didn’t foam at the mouth. I didn’t go over there and choke him. For what good would that do me? It would not have any effect on him. And until his guests departed, I could do nothing but fume and paint mental pictures of vast, complex, and exquisite torments to try out on the Dead Man.

Were you to distract me so, I might not be able to maintain the webs of deception I have woven to keep your presence here concealed.

He could deal with me and his guests both because he has more than one mind. Which mainly means he can be a pain in the butt several places at the same time. Not what I count as a big plus talent.

The fact that I could fight back only in the darkness of my heart only made my situation more unbearable.

Perhaps you should spend less bile upon me and invest more thought in the situation you fancy has engulfed you.

Standard fare from the self-declared brains of the outfit. Tell me to figure it out for myself.

Not easy. The situation was unlike any I had faced before. With me identified as the divine key, there was no mystery involved—unless it was why I had gotten trapped in the first place.

I did not like being the key, but I believed the Dead Man was right. Though No-Neck had made nothing of it, I was able to stroll right into a temple that was supposed to be sealed so tight that gods couldn’t get inside.

How had I become the key? When had I? How come I hadn’t been consulted? The virgins who give birth to the children of gods, the men compelled to beat into those sprats the principles of offering accounting and believer manipulation later, those folks always got an advisory visit from a messenger angel before the fact. Just to smooth the road, you know. Me, I’d gotten diddly. Squat. Zilch plus zip. Hell, I was out of pocket on this thing. And I could be helping people I actually liked to handle problems I actually cared about.

Not that I wanted to dive into the Weider family troubles. That just looked less treacherous than where I was at now.

The Dead Man may have been amused by my quandary, but he was preoccupied with his visitors. He spared me no more attention while he extracted whatever it was he wanted from the crew, then filled them up with new instructions and sent them on their way.

Winger was the last to leave. Of course. Dean shepherded her carefully, stopped her from entering my office, then stayed between her and anything valuable that she might find too tempting.

31

You do overestimate Miss Winger’s cupidity and amorality.

The front door had not yet closed behind the overestimated lady, who had started swapping compliments with the Goddamn Parrot. I had to wait till the door slapped her behind before I could respond.

“I really doubt that.”

She has a code of right and wrong. She sticks to it firmly.

“Yeah. Her code is, If it ain’t nailed down it’s hers to carry away. And if it can be pried loose it ain’t nailed down.”

You do the woman an injustice. But, then, you feel you have been through trying times and are justified in demonstrating a foul temper.

“It’s no feeling, Smiley, it’s fact. And my temper is going to turn even more foul if you keep indulging your hobbies while I’m getting batted around by characters who actually make you look attractive.”

I stormed across the hall, burst into the Dead Man’s room. Dean entered behind me, stood around nervously waiting to find out what was going on. He was scared. However casual or indifferent the Dead Man seemed, Dean’s intuition told him we had big trouble. Usually he copes with big trouble by going wild in the kitchen.

Though you want to believe otherwise, I have given your god problem some attention. Your friend Linda Lee brought a cartload of books here last evening. She and your friend Tinnie and her friend Alyx and their friend Nicks spent hours reading for me. I learned very little that you do not already know. Neither the Godoroth nor the Shayir pantheons represent golden examples of the brilliantly absurd natural imaginings of humanity. If some unimaginably great beings were to be connoisseurs of absurdities, these would form the centerpieces of their collections. These pantheons slithered from the bottom depths of lowest-common-denominator minds. Thud and blunder, sex and scandal, and afflict your mortal followers with pestilences and famines, disasters and humiliations, for fun, is what they are all about. And in that, of course, they mirror the souls in their care. All gods are shaped by the hearts of their believers.

What a sight that must have been, the Dead Man surrounded by beautiful women reading aloud, him absorbing the information they provided while smugly ignoring the fact that I was flailing around on the bottom in the deep smelly stuff somewhere else. And he had been aware of my plight—the Goddamn Parrot, having abandoned me to my fate, had flown home to him.

There is one aspect in need of deeper consideration. The girl who brought you out of Shayir captivity does not appear in any recorded account of either pantheon. Nor does your air-mobile infant. Which, by the by, is usually called a cherub.

“Hell, I remember cherubs now.” They were part of the mythological hardware of my mother’s religion. Mostly they just appeared in religious art.

They are part of the background populations of divine beings common to most religions springing from the same roots as the Church.

So he still had a spying eye inside my head.

For efficiency’s sake only, Garrett. About the girl. It is your feeling that she is the by-blow of either Lang or Imar, her mother having been a mortal woman?

“She didn’t tell me a whole lot about herself.”

No. She did not. And you were too taken by the imaginary possibilities of your circumstances to try to elicit any useful information.

“Hey! . . . ”

I reiterate. She does not figure in either mythology. The cherub springs from another family of religions entirely.

“I heard you. Give me a break. Imar and Lang are both the kinds of guys who grab whatever and whoever wherever and whenever they think they can get away with it. And probably don’t much care if they get caught.”

Stipulated. That is not in dispute. It is beyond dispute. But it may not be relevant. What troubles me is this anomaly, these players who do not fit the game. This girl, the cherub, even the winged horses. Anomalies always worry me. Your better course may have been to stay with the girl until you learned who she was and what she wanted.

“Maybe.” Hindsight makes geniuses of us all. “And maybe if I had done that, right now I would be the meat in somebody’s stew.”

We really are contrary this morning, are we not?

“Damned straight. The whole crew. Me, myself, and I. Happens every time I find my partner blowing my hard-earned in order to collect political rumors. Wasting it on people like Winger, that we know too well, and on that Agonistes, that we don’t know at all.”

Both are entirely trustworthy within the limits of the tasks they were asked to perform.

“Yeah? What happens when somebody out there starts wondering why you’re asking questions? Political people are born paranoid. If they interrogate Winger, she’ll tell them anything she thinks they want to hear to get herself out of it. We could end up with Relway’s thugs all over us, or The Call, or somebody out of the Cantard, or the for gods’ sake Pan-Tantactuan Fairy Liberation Army . . . ”

You are becoming excited. Please restrain yourself.

Grumble grumble.

You fail to appreciate the real magnitude of the crisis gripping TunFaire. And you fail to accept my ability to protect myself.

“It ain’t you looking out for your butt that I’m worried about, Old Bones. You’ve always done a truly outstanding job of covering number one. It’s my ass ending up in a sling that worries me.”

Always the self-centered, demanding . . . 

“Don’t play that game with me, Chuckles. It’s time you paid your rent. I’m calling. Tell me how to deal with this gods mess.”

What do you know about the rash of strange fires in the Baden neighborhood?

“Huh?” Talk about your blindsider. But he does that. One of his minds will be mulling over something not remotely related to anything under discussion and it will pop right out. “I’ve been busy. You would have noticed if you weren’t worrying about things like fires and Glory Mooncalled. What about these fires?”

I do not know. Several of my visitors have mentioned a series of unexplained, fatal fires. Not arson. Nothing burns but the victim himself, apparently, unless he sets fire to something himself.

“Sounds grisly.”

Perhaps. It is only a curiosity, of course, but I gather there was no connection between the victims, none of whom were the kind of people who get themselves assassinated.

“Great. Sounds like the perfect puzzle to keep you out of my hair on a long winter’s day. So put it on the shelf till the snows come back. Give me a hint here. What about these gods? Are we even dealing with gods?”

Again, the amount of energy being expended and the number of players involved militates against it being a confidence action. Indeed, it would be possible for a cabal of wizards to produce the effects you have encountered. But to what purpose such effort? There is no hint of any stake other than that proclaimed by the principals. This appears to be a straightforward struggle for divine status.

“Status?” Got me again. Another blindsider.

Of course. Do you accept as absolute and literal their expectation of total oblivion if they are driven from the Dream Quarter?

“Pretty much. They were real intense about it. You’re right, though. They could set up in a storefront somewhere. Plenty of crackpot outfits do.”

And there you have it. If you are not established in the Dream Quarter, yours is not a serious religion. You are a focus for lunacy. A bad joke. Even if you have a hundred times the followers of a respectable cult.

“But that would win you a place in the Dream Quarter.”

True. Although you would carry a stigma for generations. Like new money amidst old. You see my point?

“Theirs, too. You got only a couple, three followers left and you get the old eviction notice, then you try to set up shop in an abandoned sausage cookery, your followers maybe won’t show up for services anymore. Too embarrassing. They might sign on with some other crew who knew the right people and worshipped in the right place. So maybe you are dead if you’re out. It’s just not sudden.”

They might see it that way.

“So suggest me a plan. Sit tight?”

I am applying some thought to the matter. I feel it is unlikely that the pantheons remain ignorant of your whereabouts, despite our precautions. It remains to be seen if they will accept inactivity—especially once someone realizes that you are the key.

“You think they will?”

I reasoned it out easily enough. They are less able, constitutionally, to consider a mortal closely, but eventually it will occur to someone that you entered that temple as though there was no seal upon it.

“Could have been No-Neck. He was with me.”

No doubt he will pay for that.

“He deserves a warning.”

He does. I will see to it. He seemed to mull something over. I let him ferment. Events could become exciting, I fear, once that conclusion is reached. Particularly if one of the Godoroth reaches it first.

“Huh? You want to explain?”

He was in a mood. His usual response would be to tell me to work it out for myself. You suggested that Lang had eyewitness knowledge of your visit with the Godoroth. I suggest we seriously entertain the possibility that, in fact, he did hear from an eyewitness.

“You think one of the Godoroth is a traitor?” There was a boggler. Not that treachery isn’t a favorite divine sport inside any given pantheon.

And perhaps the other way as well. During your encounter with Magodor there were hints. In fact, you were, apparently, intercepted on your way to a rendezvous with the Shayir, though there is no mention of any Adeth amongst them, according to Linda Lee.

“The more you complicate this the worse it smells. It could get real nasty.”

Indeed it could. That is why I have devoted such a great store of energy to ferreting out potential twists before we find ourselves caught in the claws of an unexpected turnaround.

Although he was probably blowing smoke and wasn’t really doing anything, it was refreshing to hear him claim that he was.

“Sit tight?” I asked again.

Sit tight. And keep your hands off that rope.

“I’d say something about grandmas and egg-sucking, but it would fly right over your head.”

Like a child who cannot focus its attention long, you require frequent reminders. It is inevitable that some will be superfluous or redundant.

Was that a put-down?

Yes. It was. He was in full command of his powers, which meant there would be no getting any last word.

I jerked my hand away from my waist. That rope was damned seductive. It was hard not to fiddle with its ends.

A pity that we cannot interview the Cat person. She might be a sizable gap in these gods’ wall of secrecy. It is possible she is knowledgeable but unable to protect her knowledge.

“Guess I should have turned on the Garrett charm and sweet-talked her right on home here. Eh?” His opinion of my ability to cope with women has no connection with reality.

He responded with an unfocused mental sneer.

I countered with another grumble about him spending my hard-earned, then retreated to my office.

32

When the going gets tough the tough guy takes his problems to Eleanor. “What do you think, Darling?” Hell, Eleanor might be more use than the Dead Man.

She was all the way Over There.

Eleanor is the central feature of a painting of a frightened woman fleeing a dark mansion. Shadows of evil tower behind her, suggestions of wickedness hunting. The painter had a great talent and incredible power. Once his painting had been possessed by a dread, drear magic, but most of that had leaked away.

Eleanor had been a key player in an old case. I had fallen for her, only to learn that she had gotten herself murdered while I was still wearing diapers.

It isn’t often the victim helps solve her murder, then breaks a guy’s heart when she’s done.

It had been a strange case.

It had been a strange relationship, doomed from the start, only I hadn’t known until the end. The painting, which I seized from her killer, and some memories are all I have left.

When I have a problem that cuts deep or just tangles my brain I talk it over with Eleanor. That seems to help.

The Dead Man doesn’t have any soul. Not the way Eleanor does.

For an instant she seemed thoughtful, seemed to have a remark poised right behind her parted lips.

Take charge. Start acting instead of reacting.

“Right, Honey. Absodamnlutely. But clue me. How do I grab Imar—or good old Lang—by the gilhoolies while I kick his butt till he starts talking? Tell me. I’ll strut out that front door with my ass-kicking boots on.” Which was the crux, the heart, the soul of my problem. And ain’t it always, when mortals deal with the gods? Almost by definition, Joe Human has no leverage.

Dean appeared. He carried a big platter of stew. He set that in front of me while he frowned at Eleanor. Me talking to her makes him uncomfortable. There is enough residual sorcery in the painting to set his skin crawling.

“I saw Miss Maya while I was doing our marketing last evening.”

That explained why there was food in the house. He had wasted no time. I don’t like stew much, and his latest effort didn’t look even a little appetizing but it smelled tempting. I dug in and discovered the stew tasted way better than it looked. It was lamb. We hadn’t had lamb for a long time.

Dean has his weaknesses, but bad cooking isn’t among them. “That’s amazing, Dean.”

“Mr. Garrett?”

“I can wander all over town for months and never once run into Maya or Tinnie. I live here, but I never see either one of them come to the door. But let me take a walk around the block, when I get back I hear all about how Miss Tinnie or Miss Maya was around and I get all the latest news from their lives. How does that work, Dean? Do you hang out some kind of sign to let them know the ogre isn’t in his cave?”

Dean was both taken aback and baffled. I had lost him several sarcastic snaps earlier. “I’m sure I don’t know, sir.” He looked like he thought his feelings ought to be hurt, but he wasn’t quite sure why.

“Don’t mind me, Dean. I’m not in one of my better moods.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

“All right. All right. The stew is better than ever. You didn’t think to order a fresh keg, did you?”

“I thought of it.”

We were going to play that game, eh? “And did you follow through?”

“Actually, I did. It appears Miss Winger will be spending some time here, off and on, and Mr. Tharpe enjoys a mug when he comes by, so that seemed the hospitable thing to do.”

“Better have the empties taken away. I forgot to take care of that while you were gone.”

“I did notice that.” Since he had to work around the stack in the kitchen. “I cautioned the delivery outfit to bring a wagon or an extra cart.”

Smart aleck. He disapproves of my hobby. He doesn’t have a hobby himself. He needs one bad. Never completely trust a guy who doesn’t have a hobby. He takes everything too damned seriously.

Maybe he and the Goddamn Parrot could go for long walks together.

“I just had an idea, Dean.”

He backed off a step, beyond the sink. Beyond the kegs.

I gave him a look at my raised eyebrow. “What?”

“You are at your most dangerous when you start having ideas.”

“Like a newly sharpened sword.”

“In the hands of a drunk.”

“You would make somebody a really great wife. Here it is. We let it out that Mr. Big knows where there is buried treasure. We say he used to belong to a Lambar pirate, Captain Scab, who taught him the major chart keys. Somebody will hold us up for him next time we take him outside.”

Dean chuckled. He doesn’t like the Goddamn Parrot either. That parti-colored crow is as hard on Dean as he is on me. I owed Morley a big one. I ought to lug the Dead Man and his bug collection over and dump them in The Palms.

“It would be far easier and much less complicated just to wring its neck.”

It would indeed, but we humans seldom pursue the pragmatic course. We let ancillary factors influence us.

For example, Morley would be offended if I murdered his gift.

Dean pulled a baking sheet out of the oven. I grabbed a biscuit while it was still smouldering, drenched it in butter, splashed on a little honey. Heaven.

Paradise has a way of running off faster than I can sprint trying to catch it.

Garrett. Presences have begun gathering in the neighborhood.

“My friends?”

Dean gave me a look, then realized I wasn’t talking to him.

I cannot sense them clearly. It may be that most are not entirely present in this level of reality. I do sense a great deal of unfocused power out there, and barely restrained fears and angers. That is not a combination that bodes well.

“No shit. The master is back, folks. Do you get any sense of immediate intent? Can you make out any identities?”

No. In my youth I went to sea. You have been there, on a day when the storms stalk the horizons, balanced on slanted towers of dark rain, and the winds rise and die in moments. Sitting here sensing those creatures is like standing on the deck of a galleon watching those storms walk about.

“Very picturesque, Old Bones.” I knew exactly what he meant. I had been there. “I didn’t know you were a sailor.”

I was not.

“You said . . . ”

I went to sea.

“Probably one step ahead of the loan sharks. You mean they’re just out there, hanging around, pissed off, but without any special villainy in mind?”

Yes.

I headed upstairs so I could peek out the windows. Excepting one barred one in the kitchen that allows Dean to get some air while cooking on a summer’s day, we have none on the ground floor. That is characteristic of TunFairen architecture. We like to make our thieves work. “Are we under siege?”

Not as such. We are under observation.

“Don’t go showing off.”

In your own vernacular, Garrett, go teach your mother to suck eggs.

Grandmother, Old Bones. It’s go teach your grandmother to suck eggs. You’re going to talk like the rabble, at least try to get it right.

33

Bizarre. The street was almost empty. A brisk but confused wind flipped leaves and rubbish this way and that. It looked colder than it ought to be. There was an un-seasonal overcast. Mrs. Cardonlos was out in front of her rooming house taking advantage of the light traffic to clean the street. For reasons that would make sense only inside her strange head, she was staring at my place like the weird weather had to be my fault.

She can lay anything off onto me.

While I watched, she put her broom down, went inside, came out wearing another sweater. She glared at the sky, daring it to darken any more.

“You using my eyes?”

Yes.

“Looks like late autumn, except the trees still have their leaves.” Not that there is a lot of greenery around. My neighborhood isn’t big on tree-lined streets, lawns, gardens, and such. Brick and stone, that is us. Brick and stone.

“Can you tell anything useful?”

No. Have Dean put the bird out the front door. Back him up but stay out of sight.

“Right.” What the hell? Oh, well. Let him explain to Morley.

Mrs. Cardonlos stopped working. She stared malevolently, but not my way. Remarkable. I leaned so I could see the object of her wrath.

“See that woman, Chuckles? That’s the redhead who led me into all this. Adeth.” Curious, the old woman being able to see her.

She looks forlorn. A sad waif.

“What’s gotten into you? You have bad dreams last nap?”

Sir?

“You usually take a more mechanistic, colorless view of the world.”

Surely not. Please dispatch the bird.

“I’d love to if I could find a way to make somebody else take the rap.” I went and told Dean what His Nibs wanted. Dean just shook his head, dried his hands on a dishtowel. He left the sink to its own devices, headed for the small front room. Mr. Big had no premonition that he was about to enjoy a new adventure. Dean collected him unprotesting while I checked the stoop and street through the peephole. “All clear, Dean.”

He fiddled with locks and latches and chains. I take back what I said about him not having a hobby.

The Goddamn Parrot looked like he was about half alive. He was behaving himself. It was scary.

I hoped I didn’t start missing his obnoxious beak.

Dean pulled the door halfway open, leaned out far enough to chuck the flashy little squab into the wind. A puff of that got inside and, yes, it was chilly.

Dean jerked back inside, started to push the door shut.

“Wait! No. Go ahead. I can look through the peephole.”

Dean stepped aside. I peeped. “I was right. The beer wagon is coming. Get an extra keg if he has one. We may be locked up a long time.”

Dean glowed with dark disapproval. Then, “Are we actually involved in something serious?”

All the activity had not clued him.

“We are. And it might be the most dangerous thing yet.” I hit the highlights while we waited for Charanagua Slim to bring his cart to the foot of our steps. Slim was part elf, part troll, an improbable mix that had to be seen to be believed. He was short and hard as a rock, and both his parents had to have been the ugliest of their kind ever to reach breeding age. He was a sweetheart when you got to know him, but he made nails look soft when money was involved. He was important in my life only because he was my main source of fresh kegs of the holy elixir.

Dean slipped out to help Slim. Slim was going to be irked. Not all of my empties carried his chop.

I denned up in my office. Slim didn’t need to see me. He might tell somebody later. Or he might insist we review my fickle relationships with beer haulers.

I heard the door close barely after I sat down. I never caught a snarl of complaint from Slim. Something was wrong. I headed for the hallway.

Dean had just passed my door. He had a pony keg on his shoulder. That’s hardly enough beer to wet your whistle. “What’s that?”

“All he could deliver right now. All he had left on his cart. I took what I could get.”

I followed him into the kitchen. The empties had not stirred. “What about those?”

“He didn’t have room on his cart. He’ll be back, he said. He said business is good, what with the soldiers coming home. Said he’s working fourteen-hour days.”

Wouldn’t you know? “I smell a beer shortage coming on. Another of the unexpected horrors of peace.” I went scurrying toward the front door. Better have Slim bring me a cartload all my own. I would become a beer hoarder.

Garrett, please.

I gave it up, just took a peek through the hole. Slim sure enough did have kegs and barrels practically dripping off his cart. “I guess those human rights guys need a lot to keep them going.” Beer drinking is an essential part of the preliminary rituals of political demonstrations.

“Hang on, Smiley.”

Yes?

“Use my eyes. Take a gander up the street, past Old Lady Cardonlos’ place.”

I see nothing but a somewhat substantial peasant girl.

“That’s Cat. The one who gave me the ride on the flying horse.”

I have her. Half a minute passed. She is not quite mortal, Garrett. Ah. She is an interesting child. And this house is her destination. She is not aware that it is the center of a great deal of attention. She lacks some very basic divine senses despite being the child of a god.

“She never struck me as any genius. Hey, Dean! We’re going to have company. Take her in to His Nibs. We don’t want her to know I’m here.”

Dean offered me a look at his hardest glare. “I hope there is money in this somewhere. I have no interest in putting on a show for one of your prospects.”

“It’s all business. Just let her in. Offer her tea and a muffin and hand her off to the Dead Man.”

“Yes, sir.”

Thank you.

Both sounded as though no greater imposition had settled upon their lives before.

“You wanted to interview Cat, Smiley. Now’s your big chance.”