Faded Steel Heat

Ti

Alyx heard me talking. She decided to come over. "Want me to show you a safe place to nap, Garrett?" The devilment was back, if weakly. The stay-together-in-pairs rule remained in effect.

"No thanks." I winked.

Ti

"A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do."

71

Ti

"With you. You need somebody with you. That's the rule."

"I've got my talking feather duster."

"What good is he in a fight?"

"He squawks a lot and—"

"Be careful how you answer this one, Garrett."

Oh-oh. Time to make that extra effort. I had to remember my lines just right. Only I hadn't seen a copy of the playscript yet.

Redheads will do that to you.

So will blonds and brunettes and all the lovely ladies of every other hue.

"All right, then. You're in. That'll cure you of wanting in. Real quick." What could happen? I was just going to visit one of Karenta's most beloved subjects at his big, safe country estate.

I learned quickly that the countryside is still infested with country. It isn't my favorite part of the world. I prefer domesticated bugs, cockroaches and fleas and bedbugs. They don't get greedy if they bite at all. They don't rip off an arm and hang it in a tree to come back to later.

It was well-groomed out there, close to town, but still way too green. "You getting tired?" I asked Ti

"You trying to get rid of me again?"

"Again? I never... " One foot starting to swing out over the abyss, I shut up.

Maybe I was learning.

"Oh, look!" Ti

I told her, "The blue detracts from your eyes."

"I like them anyway. Yikes!" She jumped higher and farther than you would have believed possible for such a trim slip of a gel.

A tiny face peered up out of the flower patch. It belonged to a gri

Flower stalks swayed behind him. I glimpsed brown-and-green homespun in motion, a flicker of golden hair tossing, tiny heels flying. Well. I chuckled. The Goddamn Parrot chuckled. I took Ti

"What? You mean?... "

"Yeah."

"Oh. Actually, that's not such a bad idea, Garrett. When you think about it."

I do that a lot. "Well, if you really... "

"All this fresh air is getting me giddy. There's a wonderful big patch of cornflowers over there in that pasture."

"Not to mention cows and horses."

"I didn't know any little people still lived outside the wall. Because of the thunder lizards. You're worried about a few cows?"

No. There were horses over there. Eventually they would recognize me.

But the company went to my head. "I didn't want you worrying about the livestock."

"If they bought bullshit by the pound, you'd be the richest man in TunFaire."

"I'll never be anything but a poor second," I replied. "While Morley Dotes is alive."

Ti

This was my Ti

I leaned on a fence post, the tip of my nose an inch from hers. "I just had a thought." I glanced back toward TunFaire.

We'd passed through a small wood a while ago. The top of the Hill, a few towers, and the general miasma of evil air hanging above everything were all that could be seen of the city.

"A naughty one, I hope."

"Actually, it's more a troublesome one."

"There you go getting serious again."

"Sometimes I don't have any choice."

"All right. What is it?"

"Colonel Block warned me that I'm being followed around, all the time, by some very clever tails. Which would mean that somebody might be following me now."

"Doesn't that just mean somebody takes you serious? Aren't you always complaining because people don't take you serious?"

"Right. It's great for the ego. But it occurs to me that if I yield to temptation and vanish into a flower patch with the most stu

That tree line back there offered the last good cover for someone tracking me.

Ti

"You witch."

She laughed. "See? You forgot all about—" She stopped, stared to her right.

Somebody had left the wood. Somebody who was in no hurry. Somebody who whistled while he scuffed along the dusty road.

Staying close, Ti

"Sooner or later."

A rumble like the stir of remote thunder came from up ahead. We would reach another tree line in half a mile. The rumble came from beyond that. "Now what?" Ti

"Horsemen. A whole bunch."

The stroller behind us caught the sound. He vaulted the fence and disappeared into tall pasture grass on the other side of the road. Hmm.

I got myself over on Ti

"Why?"

"Because we don't know who's making that racket. It could be somebody we don't really want to know."

"Oh."

The war taught me to suffer inconveniences and discomfort stoically, so I only grumbled a little about the thistles in the weed patch. Ti

They might have been looking for something. They didn't see it in the pastures, though. They moved on quickly.

"What was that about?" Ti

We had watched centaurs from hiding together before, a while back, in the Cantard, which is where centaurs properly belong.

"I don't know. But those guys weren't your everyday refugees."

"I don't like it."

"It isn't far now. North English's dump is just past the next bunch of trees." I hoped. I'd never been invited out.