Whispering Nickel Idols

“Rocs are huge. They carry off mammoths.”

“An exaggeration. There are four species around Ymber. The biggest might be able to take a lamb or a small dog. People remember them big because they’re so busy getting under cover they don’t have time to look close. The littlest roc ain’t much bigger than a sparrow. Zips around like a hummingbird. That egg you got, that’s from what they call the bird of paradise phoenix. Looks kind of like a pheasant in a clown suit.”

“Like a parrot?”

“Gaudier. Tenderloin gaudy. On account of which, they’ve pretty much been hunted out for their feathers.”

“How do you hunt a roc down and take his feathers?”

“Like the joke says. Carefully.”

I gave him the fisheye. He’d distracted me from comparative-religion research. “My mother used to call things ‘rare as roc’s eggs.’ When she wasn’t on about frog fur or hen’s teeth.”

“More roc’s eggs around than frog fur coats. But they ain’t common. Especially the big ones. It takes a rare combination of guts and inspired stupidity to raid a phoenix’s nest.”

“I know some guys who’d fit.”

“Indeed. A-Laf’s sextons are chock-full of stupid and brave. But the deacons, the dicks who tell them what to do, wouldn’t waste them that way. You got a sweet mystery there, my friend. No telling how one a them got hold of an egg. Maybe from when they took A-Lat’s temple. She had them all.” BB paused to irrigate his pipes by chugging half a pint of wine.

“Thought that dead soldier was the last of his tribe.”

“You didn’t run out and volunteer to… you didn’t volunteer to run out and… hell. We got a new regiment coming into the line. Aged in the cask since last Sedonaday.”

“Which?”

“Sedonaday. Holy day of obligation for Ymnamics. Day before yesterday. Man, I’m telling you, if that was my egg, I’d prance outside and see how far out I could throw it. Get it way out there, down deep in the cold, cold mud.”

I ignored BB’s chatter, which was one hundred percent pure bull specks. But he had gotten me thinking. “Suppose I wanted to kill somebody by setting them on fire?”

BB’s face got redder. “I ain’t getting rich here, Slick, but I ain’t the kind that-”

“I don’t want to kill anybody. I want to figure out why they’re dying. It’s something else I’m looking at. People catching on fire.” I explained a little, naming no names.

“I can see where you might think rocs’ eggs, not having heard about them before. But your target would have to cooperate. The big question is, why even try? There’re easier ways to kill people. It does sound like a sorcery problem, though. Look for a fire kind of wizard with rabid bats in his belfry. Or some stray pyro talent who hasn’t been spotted by the horrors on the Hill yet. A refugee, maybe.”

BB’s latest bottle, come out of nowhere, seemed particularly potent. He developed difficulties enunciating. Before long he would shift to a language no one but Bittegurn Brittigarn understood.

“Maybe somebody who came to his abilities late and thought he could keep them hidden? Somebody with a deep streak of darkness?”

“There you go, Chief. You keep on keeping on, there you’ll be.”

This was starting to head for one-hand-clapping country.

“Give me a little help before you get all the way gone, Pastor. I need to know about the A-Lat cult. You say it’s dead. But I know a girl who says she’s the high priestess of A-Lat.”

Bittegurn Brittigarn focused on those skills needed to lift a wine container to his lips with no wastage.

I asked, “How does a roc’s egg turn into a projectile meant to brain me?” If that really was an egg, how come it was hard as a rock?

“I don’ know, man. Go ask the sexton what flung it.”

That was on my list. If Block and Relway would indulge me.

BB was sliding fast. “The A-Laf crowd. Why would they rehab the Bledsoe?”

He wasn’t native born. He had to have the charity hospital explained. Then, “For fifty years nobody but the imperial pretenders have put one copper into the Bledsoe.” Gross exaggeration. The Bledsoe is the big charity for TunFaire’s well-to-do. But that didn’t matter now. “I really want to know why they’re putting those metal animals in the wall.”

Bittegurn Brittigarn took him a long, long pull of wine. “For the pain.”

“What does that mean?”

The priest’s eyes closed. When they opened again they held a strong “You still here?” quality. He didn’t say anything. Probably couldn’t. But I had some interesting angles to pursue now. “I appreciate you taking time out of your busy day. I have to go. My mom is probably in a panic.”

He didn’t respond, other than to drool. In half an hour he’d gone from sober, friendly, and evasive to slobbering waste.

He did mutter, “The pain,” over and over. “They feed on the pain.”

He settled on the floor with his back to a wall. Making sure he had a fresh bottle in hand and several more in easy reach. He began to mutter a song in dialect, either liturgical or that dread tongue known only to those who drink sufficiently deep.

Wham!

The impact flung me against the wall. I turned as I bounced, wobbled toward a wide little woman swinging the business end of a broom in from the other side of town.

Wham!

“Hey! What the-?”

“So you’re the bastard who’s lured Bitte into the Realm of Sin!” Wham! She got all her weight into her swing.

“Lady, I never saw this guy before half an hour ago.”

“You maggot! You bottom-feeding pustule of sin! You…” There was more unjust defamation. A lot. By dint of longer limbs and skills honed in combat, I maneuvered around the stout little harridan and escaped.

She didn’t chase me.

I stood beside the doorway, out of sight, and eavesdropped as she turned her fury on a shiftless, lying, no-good, wine-soaked bastard Bittegurn Brittigarn.

I headed home convinced that I knew why Brittigarn had developed a love affair with the spoiled grape.

27

Armed with marvelous new knowledge, I ambled toward my own part of town. I didn’t pay attention. It took me a while to realize my secret-police angel was gone and Spider Webb was back.

Spidey just wanted to know where I went and who I saw. Chuckle, chuckle. I led him to the Al-Khar, then wandered on after being refused access to Block and Relway. Relway’s very existence having been denied despite his being publicly proclaimed chief of the Unpublished Committee for Royal Security. I detoured past Harvester Temisk’s digs. He wasn’t there. I circled The Palms without disturbing Morley Dotes or any cranky henchmen. By then I was ru

I ran into Saucerhead Tharpe four blocks from home. He wasn’t alone. I didn’t duck in time.

“Hey, Butthead Boy,” Winger bellowed. “I seen you. Don’t you be trying to hide.” The woman has a tendency toward loud. Tharpe seemed embarrassed to be caught in her company.