Dread Brass Shadows

Crask knelt, touched it. "And it's dead enough it's cooling out. This is weird."

"This is sorcery," Sadler said. "I don't like this. Garrett?"

"Don't look at me. I can't change water into ice."

They both scowled, sure I was holding out. Sure. Blame it on Garrett when weird things start to happen.

Crask said, "I don't like it. We ought to get out of here."

I said, "That sounds like a good plan." I headed for the door. "You guys rounded up any other news? You get a line on those dwarves yet?"

They both got a fu

Crask said, "Yeah. They got to leave a trail. They got to be staying somewhere,"

True. Curious. It bore some thought. Where could they stay and not catch the eyes of the kinds of people who work for Chodo, or who work for the people who work for Chodo? Couldn't be many places like that around.

I paused in the doorway. "Somebody really blew in here."

"Yeah," Crask said. "Hope I never have to arm-wrestle him."

I went over the fragments, looking for maybe a thread from a knit sweater that came only from one small island off the coast of Gretch, or something. You go through the motions even when you think they're pointless. A matter of discipline. They pay off sometimes, so you do them all the time. When I found a big lot of nothing, I wasn't disappointed. I'd fulfilled my expectations. If I'd found something, I'd have been overjoyed, having struck it rich beyond my wildest fancy.

Sadler said, "Let's not slide out so fast, Garrett. You had something to tell us."

"Yeah." I'd been vacillating. Information given up is advantage surrendered.

"Well?"

"Found out about another character who's got something to do with whatever's going on. Called the Serpent. She's the one this guy is supposed to have stolen a book from." Blaine was changing faster, maybe because he was getting cold.

"Well?"

Sadler ought to get together with Puddle for a gabfest. Sparkling. "The Serpent is a witch. She hangs out with dwarves." I took it from the top. They had some of it already but I didn't know how much. I gave them everything I thought they needed to know. I was real ignorant about why the book was a big deal.

"Witch, eh?" Crask eyed Blaine. That was the salient point for him.

"Tattoo?" Sadler asked. He lifted an eyebrow. "That would be a sight to see."

It would, but I was surprised he thought so. He never showed much interest along those lines. He asked, "You figure she cut Squirrel?"

"If she didn't, she knows who did."

"We'll find her. We'll ask."

"Be careful"

He gave me a look. Mostly it wondered about my smarts. He'd be careful. He'd survived his five in the Cantard. He'd survived in his line of work long enough to get to the top. Careful was his middle name, right between bad and deadly.

I took a final look at Holme Blaine, who hadn't been careful enough. He still didn't have anything to tell me. I didn't have anything to say to him, either.

I'd done my duty. It was time to get my bones moving toward a bed. If the morCartha took pity maybe I could get some sleep.

20

Morley's place wasn't far out of the way. I ignored my weariness and the racket overhead and the doings of a night proceeding in the streets and headed for the Joy House.

Ratmen were out doing what they do, picking up after everyone if they worked for the city, stealing anything loose if they were self-employed. There were more goblins and kobolds and whatnot out than I was used to seeing. I guess the weather had turned for the night people, too.

I still had that feeling I was being watched. And I still couldn't spot a watcher. But I didn't try hard.

Morley's place was a tomb. Nobody there but a couple of the kingpin's men. Even Puddle was gone, home or wherever. That gave me pause to reflect. I don't often think of guys like Puddle, or Crask and Sadler, in human terms. Home. Hell. The guy might have a family, kids, who knew what all. I'd never considered it. He'd always been just another bonebreaker.

Not that I wanted him to ask me over for di

It isn't a mood I enjoy. It gets me thinking about myself, my own lack of place and depth in the scheme. No family. Hardly any friends, and them I don't know that well. What I don't know about Morley or Saucerhead could fill books, probably. They don't know me any better, either. Part of being a rough, tough, he-man type, I suppose. On stage all the time, hiding carefully.

I have plenty of acquaintances. Hundreds. We're all tied together in a net of favors done and owed, all of us keeping tabs on the balance, sometimes thinking it friendship when it isn't anything but a shadow of the obsession that drives Chodo Contague.

Comes out of the war. There isn't a human male in this city who didn't do time in hell. I even have that in common with the nabobs of the Hill. Whatever privileges they claim or steal, exemptions aren't among them.

Down in the Cantard witch's cauldron, you keep track of all the little stuff and strive to keep a balance because you don't want anybody checking out owing you. And, even though you share a tent, cooking utensils, campfires, clothes, even girls, you never get too close to anybody because a lot of anybodies are going to die before it's over. You keep your distance and it don't hurt so much.

You dehumanize the enemy entirely and your comrades enough—though you'll charge into hell behind them or storm heaven to rescue them—you never open your heart and never let them open theirs.

It makes sense when you're down there in the shitstorm. And once you've survived the storm and they send you home, you're saddled with that baggage forever. Some come home like Crask and Sadler, purged of everything human.

That got me wondering what those two had done during their duty. I'd never heard. They'd never said. A lot of guys don't. They put it all behind them.

Then I started wondering why, though the night people were busier than usual, it was so quiet out. Night isn't just the time of those races who have to shun the sunshine, it's the time of the bad boys, the time when the predators come out. I wasn't seeing anybody dangerous or suspicious.

I guess Chodo had the baddies beholden to him busy, and the free-lancers, not clued in, were lying low so they wouldn't catch his attention. Or maybe it was just the morCartha being so obnoxious nobody came out who didn't have to.

The morCartha weren't that much trouble if you hugged the edge of the street and kept an eye out. They seldom risked crashing into a building just to swoop down and steal a hat.

Speaking of whom.

The tenor of their aerial pandemonium changed suddenly, radically. A violent outcry spread. It sounded like terror. Hasty wings beat the air frothy. The sky cleared. An almost total silence fell. It was so remarkable I paused to look at the sky.

A broken fragment of moon lay somewhere low in the east, out of sight, casting barely enough light to limn the peaks and spires of the skyline. But there was light enough to show a shape circling high up.

Its wings sprawled out a good thirty feet. It wasn't doing anything but making a wide, gliding turn over the city before heading back north.

A flying thunder-lizard. I hadn't known they were night hunters. I'd never seen one before. What I saw of this one made it look a lot like a prototype for all those dragons guys in tin suits are killing in old paintings. I hear they are. The dragons of story are mythical. Which makes them about the only imaginary creatures in this crazy world. Hell, I've even run into a god who thought he was real.