No telling what was going on inside Singe's head. She accepted my explanation. For the moment.
I suggest you be on your way before she changes her mind. Do not dawdle exiting the neighborhood. I will bewilder and confuse any watchers but I can manage that only for a few seconds. Certainly less than a minute.
I grunted grumpily. Any watchers would want to follow me, not the ragged crone.
Singe made an unhappy noise, too.
"What's the matter?"
"I was dizzy for a second. It was like there was a buzzing inside my head."
"Hunh." She had some slight psychic sense, too? Amazing.
112
"Quite a comedown from a manor in the country," Morley observed. The structure before us wasn't abandoned but certainly deserved to be. There was no charitable way to consider it fit for human occupation.
We stood in shadow, waiting while Singe shed her disguise. I mused, "But it's probably the kind of place she lived before she found out what she could do with what nature gave her and went to work on TunFaire."
"Where the streets are paved with gold."
Everyone comes to TunFaire to find their fortune. Mostly the survivors find despair. But there are just enough success stories to keep the gullible coming. "Fool's gold."
"Ready," Singe whispered. "Follow me." She darted from cover to cover, her true nature guiding her. The Goddamn Parrot fluttered across, high enough to be heard only, not seen, scouting from above. Morley and I followed the ratgirl. Dotes continued grumbling about not being allowed to bring along any of his friends from The Palms. I stopped listening.
We practically stumbled over a trio of ogre teenagers, one of each sex, who were way out of their territory and almost certainly up to no good themselves. They never saw Singe. They turned tail quickly once they glimpsed the equipment Morley and I were carrying. I decided I had yet another reason for wringing the Goddamn Parrot's neck. What the hell kind of scouting was he doing? He should've warned us.
The encounter did shut Morley up. Which would've happened anyway. He shows no lack of concentration when the situation gets tight.
We took the rat route inside. No front door. We wriggled through a huge gap in a broken foundation That placed us inside a cluttered, stinking cellar so dark even Morley couldn't see and had to be guided to a rickety stair by Singe. She murmured, "Stay close to the wall. Especially you, Garrett. It might not take your weight otherwise." Sounded like she was trying to crack wise. She needed practice. Maybe I'd let her work with the Goddamn Parrot.
The stairs groaned in protest. I sneezed despite a struggle to avoid that. Morley was having trouble with the musty air, too. I wondered why we hadn't just come in using the people route. Maybe I'd ask later. Maybe the simple thing hadn't occurred to Singe. We're all creatures of habit.
Tama Montezuma was multitalented but being a light sleeper didn't appear to be amongst her skills. Moreover, she snored like a drunken boatswain. That seemed way out of character.
The memory of a cloying, sweetish odor hung on the air. As Singe struck a spark to light a lamp for my benefit, I recognized that smell. Burnt opium. Opium smoking is an uncommon vice in TunFaire. It's an expensive, dangerous indulgence in an area where far cheaper, safer substitutes will whack your brain just as far around sideways and leave you drooling and acting even more stupid.
I had seen nothing to suggest she was an addict. But many addicts do function quite well much of the time, if they have money.
The light revealed a woman who had fallen apart, not at all the Tama Montezuma I had encountered at The Pipes. This Tama had fled all the way back to her roots, and beyond, in almost no time. This wasn't the Tama everybody wanted to find. This was a Tama overcome by despair, a Tama who had no more reason to live. This was a Tama who couldn't possibly have a stolen fortune hidden.
"You could have taken her," Morley murmured to Singe. "You didn't need our help." He looked at me. I could see the same thoughts flaring behind his eyes as were exploding behind mine.
"Yes. But it did not seem there was anything to be gained."
Our talk roused Tama. She struggled to sit up. She hadn't been eating well or keeping herself clean. She managed to look up at me. "You finally got here."
"I'm a little slow. Singe had to come fetch me." I didn't tell her I hadn't been looking.
She reached for her pipe. Morley pushed it out of reach. If she was addicted, she would cooperate more fully if he kept that carrot dangling just out of reach.
Morley said, "Get a ring on Singe's finger before she gets any older or cleverer, Garrett. She played not just you but the Dead Man this time."
"Wouldn't have a coin on you, would you?"
"She's wearing a silver wristlet. So is the woman."
So was the woman. They weren't shapechangers. "Tama. You want to tell me something?"
"The fortune everyone thinks I got. I didn't. They knew. They found it. It wasn't where it was supposed to be when I got there." Tama's eyes wouldn't focus but her brain seemed sharp enough. "They only left the silver I took and the opium I bought as an investment. They expect me to destroy myself for them."
I had a mind like a razor tonight. I saw the answer she'd give me before I asked but I asked anyway. "And who might ‘they' be?"
"The shapeshifters. The Dragons."
Maybe. But I didn't think so. More likely the Wolves hoping Tama would think Dragons and point a finger that way when she got caught.
Why would the Dragons leave opium behind? It has value even it it's not popular. It can be exported. There's a good market in Venageta.
"But you got all of the shifters, didn't you?" Morley asked me, in as close to a whine as I'd ever heard pass his lips.
"No. We missed at least one. For a while I thought that one might be North English. I figured he really did die the night he was attacked." It had taken only a slight adjustment of viewpoint, coupled with recollections of odd behavior, particularly at the Weider place when Marengo steadfastly avoided joining the rest of us on the main floor, to make me intensely suspicious. I'd decided he must've wanted to avoid running into Singe and her marvelous nose. There'd been other indicators, too, but once I cleared my head, lay back, considered nothing else, I'd been forced to conclude that the Marengo who had returned to The Pipes the morning after the aborted Cleansing could not have been a shapeshifter—much as I might want to stick him with something. But I was just as sure that he was supposed to have been killed. That he was supposed to have been replaced after he was attacked, that he was supposed to return home apparently badly injured as a means of covering and explaining the differences betrayed by the replacement as he took control of The Call. I had a feeling he might have gone into seclusion temporarily while Tama Montezuma relayed his orders to everyone exactly as she had done with the Brotherhood Of The Wolf. I had a strong suspicion that Marengo's bacon really did get saved by marauding dwarves, contemplation of which irony, ranged alongside various betrayals by supposed true believers, explained North English's newfound spirituality. Only I couldn't quite buy that, either. Maybe because it didn't satisfy my prejudices. Maybe because there were still loose ends.
I kept telling myself that there are always loose ends. Where there are people involved nothing ever wraps up neatly. Truth becomes more elusive than leprechauns. Hell, I've downed a few beers with leprechauns. Truth, when I run into it, often is dressed up in a cunning disguise.