Dread Brass Shadows

The body lay ten feet from the bottom end of the alley. Somebody with a sharp blade and strong, probably using a downward stroke, had sliced him from his right ear down the side of his throat and chest all the way to his bellybutton bone deep. "Last time I saw a wound like that was when I was in the Corps."

"Yeah," Crask said. "Two-handed dueling saber?"

Sadler demurred. "Couldn't get away with lugging one around I say. Just sharpness and strength."

Crask squatted. "Could be. But how do you get that close to hit that hard with a legal knife?"

They meandered off into a technical discussion. Crafts men of murder talking shop. I squatted to give Squirrel a closer look.

Some of us never get used to violent death. I saw plenty in the Marines and didn't get numb. I've seen more than enough since. I still don't have calluses where Crask and Sadler have them. Maybe it's hereditary. Squirrel probably earned what he'd gotten, but I mourned him all the same. I noted, "He wasn't robbed or anything."

"He was plain hit," Crask said. "Somebody wanted rid of him."

"And him such a sweetheart. It's a sacrilege."

If those guys have a weakness, it's lacking a sense of humor. Their idea of a joke is promising a guy to turn him loose if he can walk on water wearing lead boots. My crack didn't go over.

Sadler said, "Chodo doesn't like it, Squirrel getting offed. He wasn't much good but he was family. Chodo wants to know who and why."

"You guys using carrier pigeons now?" Chodo lives way the hell and gone out in the sticks, north of town. There shouldn't have been time for all the back and forth implied here.

They ignored me. They get that way about trade secrets—or anything they don't think I need to know. Crask said, "You get anything here we don't?"

I shook my head. All I could tell was that Squirrel wouldn't be doing much dancing anymore.

Sadler said, "Bet the iceman used both hands. You'd get more on it that way."

Crask told me, "We're going to keep an eye on you, Garrett. Something don't add up here. Maybe you didn't tell us everything."

Hell, no, I hadn't. Some things Chodo doesn't need to know. I shrugged. "I find out who did it, you'll be the first to know."

"Take it to heart, Garrett. Take it to bed with you. Get up with it in the morning. Chodo is pissed. Somebody is going to pay." He turned to Sadler and started in on whether the killer had cut upward or downward. Ignoring me. I'd been dismissed. Warned and dismissed. Chodo owed me, but not the life of one of his men. Maybe I was nearer even with him than I'd thought.

I checked Squirrel again, but he still wasn't sharing any secrets. So I got out of there.

Heading home, I saw something I'd never seen in TunFaire before, a centaur family trotting down the street

The fighting in the Cantard must have gone berserk if the natives were fleeing it, too. I'd never heard of centaurs ranging this far north.

Things must be going real bad for Glory Mooncalled and his hatchling Cantard republic. He'd be gone soon and the world could get back to normal, with Karentine killing Venageti in the never-ending contest for control of the mines.

I'd have to mention the centaurs to the Dead Man. Glory Mooncalled is his hobby. The mercenary turned self-crowned prince has lasted longer than even my career houseguest expected.

14

While walking home, I noticed that, though it was still too early for morCartha high jinks, there were plenty of fliers aloft. Like every fairy and pixie in the known universe, with a random sample of other breeds. I nearly trampled a band of gnomes while gawking at the aerobatics. The gnomes yowled and cursed and threatened mayhem upon my shinbones. The tallest didn't reach my kneecap. They were feisty little buggers.

I stood and gawked while they stomped off, cocky because they'd intimidated one of the big people. I didn't get around to cussing back because I was numb. You don't often see gnomes. Not in town. They look kind of like miniature dwarves who sometimes find time to shave. "What next?" I muttered, and "Never mind! I don't want to find out." Just in case my guardian angel was going to grant my every wish.

I reported to the Dead Man. He seemed more interested in the gnomes and centaurs than in what had happened to me. I held my tongue while he mulled, what I'd gotten from his pal Gnorst, then digested the news about Squirrel. Then he queried, Why do you not want the killer to have been the woman Winger?

"I liked her. In an off-the-wall sort of way. She had balls that drag the ground."

You get your priorities scrambled. You mentioned her name to Mr. Crask and Mr. Sadler.

"I did indeed. I wasn't thinking clearly at the time. A mistake, but with some justification." They would find her and ask her some hard questions. Unless she did the unlikely and headed for her home village fast. Like about the day before yesterday.

You did not mention the book.

"I was playing with pain. I managed to think a little. I thought I should keep something to myself."

Wise decision. If for the wrong reason. Consider the power of the book, then consider that in the hands of Chodo Contague.

I did. And maybe had before, unconsciously. "Not a good plan."

Not for anyone but Chodo Contague. A fancy keeps floating through your mind. It may not be as difficult as you think.

"What?" He'd blindsided me again.

To find an eyewitness to the Squirrel person's demise.

"You're kidding. Chodo's in it. People are going to sew their lips together."

He does not intimidate everyone.

"You weren't there, Fearless One. Everybody that he don't intimidate is buried. Or soon will be."

You noted considerable aerial activity out there. How often do fairies and pixies catch your attention? More often than children and pets? Generally such remain part of the background unless they force themselves upon you. And in that you are not unique. The Squirrel person's killer probably was careful about witnesses, but did not think to check the air above.

"It's an idea. One of your more outrageous ones, but an idea. How am I supposed to con some witness into talking?"

Pass word to the fairy and pixie communities saying you will pay for information about what happened in that alley. Those people are not afraid of Chodo Contague. In fact, they hate him. They would not help him. If he has a similar notion, they will thumb their noses at his men. They can fly faster than his thugs can run.

Legwork again. He was coming up with these things just to get more hoofing around town.

Still, it might be worth a shot. If I could get the message across. It's hard to communicate with those people. They speak Karentine but somehow it isn't at-ways the same language I speak. You have to be careful what you say and precise in how you say it. No ambiguities. No words or phrases that can be understood in more than one way. You do and ninety-nine times in a hundred they'll take you the wrong way. I think they do it on purpose, to give us a hard time.

I'd never thought much about it, but there are peoples with little to fear from Chodo. It might behoove me to find friends among them. Sure as the sun will rise in the east, there'll come a day when Chodo and I go head-to-head; I don't want that day to come and I expect he doesn't, either, but we both know our natures make it inevitable.

I said, "Crask and Sadler got me spooked."

They did more good than harm.

"I heard that. Those dwarves weren't taking me to a party."

Time to consider taking on backup.

"Yeah." He was being awful practical. "I wanted to keep the little leaf-eater out of it but I'm really not at my best when the odds are eight to one."