“Tell me about them.”
I did. It didn’t take long.
“I wish I could experiment. Since I can’t, let’s put them in a lead-lined iron casket and bury them under the stable floor. If they go off and melt through the box they’ll just sink down into the earth.”
“Ingenious.” I got the stones out. I’d also brought the little box we’d taken off the deacon. “Put this in there, too. No! Don’t open it.” I explained about the nickel idols. “They turn into pure, concentrated despair when they’re charged up. You’re close to them when they cut loose, you hear ghosts telling you to kill yourself.” Maybe you took sick, too.
What a weapon for someone into dirty politics.
Playmate considered, then asked, “You poked around inside the Bledsoe?”
“I visited the woman Temisk tried to kill. That’s all.”
“I’m wondering if there isn’t an upside to this villainy. A chance that, with evil intentions, they might be managing something good.”
Playmate might be the only guy in TunFaire able to worry about the pavements of the road from hell. I asked, “How so, Swami?”
“If the nickel idols suck despair out of the Bledsoe, then the inmates might be getting better.”
“The statues might drive wack jobs sane?”
“Seems logical. Though despair isn’t the only reason people go mad.”
I began to see possibilities. I began to get excited. “The right arms get twisted, the Bledsoe could actually do some good.”
“You’d need the Ymberians. They know how the system works. I doubt they’re interested in curing anyone, though. But yes, think about it. Just suck the pain right out. Smash it into the idols and… uh-oh.”
“Yeah. The charged idols would be dangerous. And men who’d use them for their own purposes outnumber you and me. This’ll take some thinking. We’ve got to get it right.”
“We?”
“What?” He never shirked a chance to do a good deed.
“I do see it, Garrett. But I’m only one man. Who’d have to fly into a frenzy of ambition. Which I don’t have much of anymore.”
“I see.” I saw. “It wouldn’t be a one-man mission, Play. If it’s workable. We can worry about that later. I’ll see what Max Weider thinks. I just had to get this stuff out of the house. We’d be in deep brown if Chodo had one of his psychic spasms.”
“Is there anything else?” Playmate hadn’t offered the customary hospitality. I could’ve used a drink. He must’ve had a woman stashed. Or wanted to get back to work. Or something less flattering to my ego.
I thought I’d stop by The Palms, take a break. After half an hour of slogging through snow up to my knees, into the wind. Uphill. Barefoot… But the place was boarded up and showing no light.
66
The Dead Man heard my thinking about the Bledsoe and whispering nickel idols. Creative. Consider deep-sea disposal. With the charged jackals sealed into slow-rusting containers. The idols would discharge their darkness very slowly, down in the darkest deep.
That was supposed to be a joke.
We could call that part of the ocean the Depths of Despond.
“I got it. We’d have a lot of depressed fish. Not to mention the big uglies that live down there. Picture a school of really cranky krakens.”
An interesting fabulation. But I have another concern. One we can discuss with Colonel Block once our present troubles clear.
“Yeah?”
Two things concern me.
“Is this an auction?”
Three things. But your attitude, like the disposal of the nickel jackals, can abide a less stressful moment.
I figured staying quiet would cause him to get to the point.
It worked. He felt impelled to fill the vacuum. First, the child, Penny Dreadful, has not responded to the seeds I planted in her mind. Second, we have had no contact with Miss Winger for several days.
“You gave her work?”
I did. As mentioned. I have her examining Mr. Temisk’s back trail.
“You paid her up front?”
A percentage.
“Big mistake. She won’t turn up till she thinks you’re asleep. Then she’ll try to con me about something you supposedly promised her.”
You are too cynical. But we will table that, too. Singe’s brother approaches. His thoughts are veiled, but he is troubled.
I opened the door. The snow hadn’t let up. John Stretch looked as miserable as a ratman can get.
“In, brother,” I told him. “That’s incredible.”
“It is like nothing my folk remember. Some wonder if stormwardens are not feuding.”
Singe met us at the door to the Dead Man’s room. She had hot cocoa for her brother.
“How about it, Old Bones? Is this weather natural? Is there any precedent?”
There is no obvious storm sorcery. Yes, there have been worse snowfalls. But Mr. Pound did not come here for small talk about snowfalls. Mr. Pound?
John Stretch shook like a dog drying off.
“Creepy, ain’t he?”
“Some. But he is correct. I came to report that there is war in the streets.”
I considered a crack about a chance to get rich selling snowshoes to the combatants. Hush. This will be important.
“Who’s fighting?”
“The Syndicate. The part that belongs to Rory Sculdyte. And the Unpublished Committee for Royal Security. They hit the Sculdytes hard, everywhere, at the same time.”
I was surprised Relway had started so soon. Though, surely, he’d had plans roughed in ahead. He thought that way.
“I expected something. But not so soon.”
“They have killed most of the Sculdyte crew. Rory and Merry and a few others have escaped, so far.”
The Palms was boarded up. Had Morley gone underground?
You are correct. We must be on guard. The Sculdytes could make a connection between us and their parlous circumstance. And you were seen entering with Mr. Temisk and Mr. Contague. If they were recognized, we will draw a great deal of interest.
“Count on Mr. Mulclar. Dean. How are we fixed for supplies? Honestly.”
It seemed we were good as long as we could survive without stewed apples and beer.
We couldn’t hold out forever, though. And forever wouldn’t be long enough if Block and Relway wanted to root us out. Assuming they survived their current adventure.
Aloud, I wondered, “Do you suppose they went now because they’d have a better chance of getting away with it in this weather?”
Given the devotion of Mr. Relway’s department, the weather should prove an advantage. News will be slower to reach those inclined to interfere. People who are loath to get their feet cold or wet. Colonel Block and Director Relway are bright enough to recognize a window of opportunity. But that is their crusade. Ours is… I am no longer certain what ours is. The adventure has been exciting but anticlimactic.
I was no longer sure, myself. I’d done my bit for Chodo but didn’t feel I’d discharged my debt. I hadn’t rescued him. Harvester Temisk had enjoyed more success, though not yet as much as he’d wanted.
I hadn’t done well with the Green Pants Gang, either. Though any threat they’d posed had been negated. The Watch knew them now.
They came to TunFaire in quest of converts and wealth. They will not create a bigger Ymber now. Inadvertently, they may cause considerable good. All because Dean was a pushover for a girl with sad eyes and a sadder story.
“We still need to talk to that kid. She might be a villain herself.”