I stopped walking, leaned against a wall, started the process of self-examination while considering my next move.
23
I don't figure I set a record for the standing high jump but I did go up like I had wings.
"Garrett!"
I came down facing Winger, knowing I'd have been dead if she'd wanted me that way.
This was a free one. The gods wouldn't hand me another chance to get away with napping on the street. "Hey, Winger." I hoped my voice didn't quaver too bad.
How had she found me so fast?
Homework. I'll bet she took my advice and did her homework. There was hope for her.
I looked around. I didn't see the guys who'd chased me. "Where are your brunos?"
"Huh?"
I'd forgotten she was from out of town. She wouldn't know the argot. Brunos are low-grade hired thugs. "The hard boys who were with you outside my place."
"They weren't with me. I didn't know they were there till you took off and they went after you."
"Oh?" The gods shield fools, all right. "Maybe you better think about getting into another line of work. You aren't going to stay alive long in this one."
She shrugged. "Maybe not. But if I go, I'll check out doing what I want to do, not worn out from pulling a plow and making babies."
She had a point. One of the reasons I do what I do is because I get to be my own boss, not a creature caught up in a web of commitments and responsibilities. "I got you."
"It's tomorrow, Garrett. And Lubbock is getting impatient."
Tough, I thought. I said, "All right. Lead on."
She headed toward the Hill. I let her lead and set the pace, kept my mouth shut. She walked like she was still behind a plow. Kind of a waste. If you took time to look her over, you saw she wasn't a bad-looking woman at all, just put together on a large scale. Way too big for my taste. I figured she would clean up pretty nice. If she wanted.
I asked, "You happen to get a look at those clowns who were sniping at me off that roof?"
She grinned. "I did better than that, Garrett. I ambushed them when they came down. Kicked their butts and broke their toys."
"All of them?"
"There was only four of them. Little hairy fellas. Stubborn. Trick with them is, stay in too close for them to use them crossbows but don't get so close they can reach you. Work on them with your feet." She skipped, kicked a foot high. I hadn't seen boots like those since I got out of the Marines. Those would do a job on somebody. If you had the strength to lift them.
"How come you did that?"
"They was horning in on my game. You ain't no good to me full of them little arrows."
"I wouldn't be much good to me, either. Wish I knew where they came from."
"Them fuzzballs?"
"The very ones, Winger. That makes three times they've come after me." Recalling that I started watching my surroundings with more enthusiasm.
We were headed toward the Hill. Her principal had to be a stormwarden or firelord or... I tried to recall which of our sorcerer elite might be in town. I couldn't think of a one. Everybody who was anybody and old enough was down in the Cantard helping hunt Glory Mooncalled.
If I was the political type, I'd figure this was a great time for an uprising. Our masters hadn't left anyone to keep us in line. But I'm not a political type. And neither is anyone else. So we'll just keep going on going on the way we've always gone on—unless Mooncalled pulls off his greatest coup yet and arranges it so none of -them come home.
After deliberating, Winger told me, "I don't know where they come from, Garrett. But I got a good idea where they went."
"Ah?" Turn up the charm and cunning, Garrett. Shuck and jive this rube right out of her socks.
"Twenty marks. Silver. After you see Lubbock."
I'm nothing if not adaptable. "I'll give you three." I wasn't carrying much more than that.
"It's your ass. You don't figure it's worth twenty marks, I'm not going to argue with you."
Some of these rubes have a certain low cunning and a nose for sniffing profit out of disaster. "Make it five, then."
She didn't say anything, just led me on toward the Hill. All right. She'd come around. Five marks was a lot of money to a country girl.
A couple of dwarves ambled across an intersection ahead. I blurted, "Ten." And they hadn't even looked our way. Hell, they never did. They were just a couple of short businessmen.
Winger ignored me.
All right. I know. I gave myself away there. But I was nervous. You'd be nervous if you had dwarves trying to poop you every time you stuck your head out of the house.
Dean doesn't let me do the marketing, either.
I didn't let up on keeping a lookout. Not for a second. I didn't see anything disturbing, either, except once I caught a glimpse of a guy who could have been Crask, but he was a block away and I couldn't be sure. I did grin, though. That might be something to bargain with.
24
I stopped, studied our destination.
"Come on, Garrett. Quit farting around."
"I want to look it over first." The place looked like some nut's idea of a haunted castle, in miniature, a hangout for runt werewolves and vampires too limp of wrist to fly. It was a castle, all right, but no bigger than the surrounding mansions. About quarter scale. All black stone and dirty. "Cheerful little bungalow. This where Lubbock lives?" I'd seen the place before but hadn't paid attention. Just another hangout for some nut on the Hill. I knew nothing about it.
"Yeah. He owns it. Only, tell you the truth, I don't think his name is really Lubbock."
"No! Really?"
She gave me a double dirty look.
"What do you know about him?"
"He's in metals smelting. That's his business, I mean. Royal contracts. Very rich. I picked that up keeping my ears open. He's a little peculiar."
"I'll say."
"Try to keep a straight face."
I started moving again. Slowly.
I expected zombie guards at the gate. Maybe gnome zombies, since the place was so shrunk down.
Black steel bars covered its few windows. A toy drawbridge spanned a toy moat five feet wide. Nonhuman, fangy skulls hung over the gate. Smoke dribbled out of their nose holes. Oily torches burned in broad daylight. Somewhere a group of musicians played spooky music. A dozen morCartha perched on the battlements, living gargoyles. I'll say somebody was peculiar.
A guy who goes to live on the Hill usually buys or builds his dream house there
I stopped, considered the morCartha. They seemed lethargic beyond what was to be explained by the fact that it was daytime. Winger said, "Let's don't stand around in the street." She crossed the drawbridge without a qualm. "You coming?"
"Yeah. But I'm beginning to wonder if this is such a bright idea."
She laughed. "Stop worrying. It's all for show. 1-fe's a crackpot. He likes to dress up and play sorcerer but the only magic he can do is make food disappear."
Probably so. If he had any real talent, he'd be in the Cantard trying to outwaltz Glory Mooncalled.
A cadaverous old guy met us. Without a word he led us to a small, spooky receiving room. The walls were decorated with whips and chains and antique instruments whose function I didn't even want to guess. By way of art there was a rogue's gallery of demonic portraiture. Also a couple of real people I probably should have known, did I pay much attention to history. They looked like they'd shaped our past.
Lubbock joined us.
He made the Dead Man look slim and trim. He had to go six hundred pounds if he went a stone. He wore a silly black wizard's outfit that looked like he'd made it himself. It had enough material in it to provide tents for a battalion. The powers that be got wind of it, they'd have him up on charges of hording.