Didn't seem to be anybody around. Even that off-and-on presence behind me was absent. Nice that whoever that was occasionally slipped up or needed rest.
I hustled to the door and banged away. Dean opened up. I crabbed, "What took so long?" He answered me with one of his better glowers. He hadn't taken long at all. The house was quiet. ‘Carla gone to bed?"
"Yes. I shall do so myself, now."
"Where? Across her door?"
"The daybed."
He didn't give me what I deserved for my crack. Oh, well. "Sleep well." I clumped into the Dead Man's room. "Awake there, Old Bones?" It would be like him to take a two-week nap in the middle of things.
Yes. I gather you were frustrated again.
"It just gets worse," I told him. "Any suggestions?"
Get some sleep. While the implications are disturbing, the information is tenuous. I will have to do considerable thinking.
"Get some sleep? That's the best idea you've had in years."
Do not allow frustration to embitter you, Garrett. We all suffer our unproductive days.
Easy for him to say. lie had unproductive centuries. "Your talent for noting the obvious remains unblunted."
Indeed. But we cannot indefinitely continue to be in the wrong place or to arrive too late.
"We can't? Want to bet?"
Despair does not become you, Garrett. Dawn follows the darkest hour as surely as the rains fall to earth. Put Chodo Contague out of mind. Rest. That is the most useful thing you can do at this point. Relax. And rejoice. He does not have the book itself.
He was right. The dead fat genius usually is. Sometimes he can't be wrong if he wants. But: "No. He's just got somebody who knows how to make a book. That son of a bitch would write his own." I was in one of those moods where you're contrary for contrariness's sake. But maybe I've grown up some. I didn't overindulge. "While you're pondering, conjure me up a theory that explains the disappearances of Morley Dotes, Saucerhead Tharpe, and Sadler. And figure Out who's following me like a ghost, so good I've never caught a glimpse."
As to those disappearances, I do have a hypothesis. Two, in fact. But they must be tested. And I refuse to discuss them till you have slept.
I knew better but wasted time trying to pry something out of him. He wouldn't budge. Does anybody ever budge? I don't think they can. They only don't or won't. It's always negative. How come?
See what kind of mind is out there leading the war on evil? Tsk-tsk.
He wouldn't budge. And even a boulder anchored to bedrock is less stubborn than a dead Loghyr.
I gave up, shambled toward the doorway.
What news from the Caniard, Garrett? As though he hadn't read my mind and found that I hadn't bothered asking around. Just a little nudge, there—nudge, unfortunately, being one of those words that doesn't come standardly negative. Old Bones nudges me a lot. Hinting that maybe if I cooperated more with him, he'd help me more. Right. Laziness is his reason for hanging around. He's too damned lazy to finish dying.
I didn't answer him. I tramped upstairs and threw myself into bed still clad, lay there searching my soul, tossing and turning, for at least seventeen seconds.
32
Dean wouldn't let me sleep in. I got four hours of the kind of sleep that fires and earthquakes can't interrupt, then he arrived. The ultimate disaster.
I cracked one eye a hundredth of an inch, heaved one leg over the side of the bed. That seemed good enough for a day's work, but that old man wasn't satisfied. He went for a bucket of water he had cooling out back. He found me sitting up when he got back. I grumped, "How come you couldn't send Carla?"
"Because you wouldn't get up. The sausages would burn, the biscuits would blacken, the kettle would boil dry while you tried to lead her astray."
"You're one suspicious and negative old goat." I made an epic attempt to stand up. It didn't work.
Dean chuckled. "I know you. If I don't stay between you and Miss Carla, nothing will get done around here for the next two weeks."
"I'm hurt. I'm in pain. Why don't you just bring breakfast up here?"
He hefted the bucket of ice water.
"Whoa!" I blinked several times, taking my morning exercise. Dean eased over to a better spot, started to wind up. The man doesn't know the meaning of mercy.
He sneered. "Maybe that's not such a bad idea."
"Huh?"
"My niece Ruth brought me fresh clothing. She's downstairs. She'd love to serve you breakfast in bed."
I groaned. The man won't play fair. Talk about your double-whammy threat. Ruth is a nice kid. Lots of personality. You know how that translates. Dogs don't howl when she goes by, they whimper and slink, hoping she won't notice them. "I'm Out of my class now."
He chuckled again. Evil old man.
Then I didn't think well of myself for a minute. Ruth was nice. She couldn't help her looks.
I got completely vertical and wobbled toward the hail. I made it downstairs without killing myself. I even pasted on a wan smile for the ladies in the kitchen. Carla and Ruth had a contest to see who could beam back the brightest. It was like staring into the rising sun. I dropped into a chair and shielded my eyes.
Dean was a prophet. Breakfast was sausages and biscuits, with hot tea My condition improved radically, though I never achieved sparkle. I staggered up and made the song march to the Dead Man's room. "I'm here, Chuckles." Plop into the chair.
Barely.
"Huh?" I had to figure it out. I'm not at my best in the morning. You may have noticed.
We have only one real option left. We have to be the first to find the book. I consider that imperative now. if we fail, it could mean disaster for TunFaire.
"Eh?" It was too ear'y. I'd left my brain upstairs snoozing.
After sustained reflection I have come to distrust the motives of my friend the Gnorst. The cues are small but there. He has succumbed to temptation.
"I thought so."
We can, for the moment, ignore the Serpent. She has been neutralized. Easterman is of little account.
"You think? He's got Winger playing for him."
She is lucky to slay alive. Her luck will not last. No, Chodo Contague is the hunter who concerns me. The focus has shifted to his forces and those of the Gnorst. Both parties are far more formidable than the originals commanded by the witch and the madman. We now have the potential for a substantial conflict, perhaps fired by some personal animus, considering hints you picked up during your interview with the kingpin.
I had to slap me upside the head to get the clockwork ticking well enough to understand what he was saying.
‘Yeah Chodo had sounded bitter about dwarves and Dwarf Fort. He hadn't been able to corrupt the place. Knowing him, he'd like to get in there and kick some ass. He don't like it when folks aren't afraid.
"We're off to a scintillating start today, aren't we? With your brains and my brawn I just know we'll wrap it all up before lunch."
You appear to be coming to life.
"Easy for you to say. All I got to do is breathe."
We do have a lead, Garrett. An oblique angle that should not be difficult to pursue
"Could have fooled me."
Assume our unclad guest was Holme Blaine.
"We know that for a fact."
Not exactly, though it is highly probable. Now. Listen. You have spent considerable energy trying to guess why he came here but none on why he chose us in particular.
I was coming around. I could see both fragments of the hair he was splitting. "I thought about that." But not very much.
You thought of the lead, too. The possibility that he came because he knew Miss Ramada was going to come.
"So you think I should see the people she talked to, find out if he talked to them, too, see if he left something with somebody."